Fic: "Illicit" -- Kurt/Blaine. 5+1 pot-smoking fic. <3
My apologies for the long wait for the next chapter of the "Body" podfic, everyone! I've been scrambling like a crazy person to get this beast finished before Uni goes into full swing.
Also: I wrote something happy for once!! :D I hope you enjoy, even if something like this isn't usually your style!
<3
Title: Illicit (or 'Five times Kurt and Blaine smoked marijuana together and one time things got a little more out of hand')
Author: emilianadarling
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Kurt/Blaine
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Pot smoking, stoned!sex
Length: 40,500 words
Story Summary: Blaine leans close enough that their mouths are only an inch apart - and exhales a long stream of smoke right into Kurt’s mouth. Kurt learns about something the Warblers occasionally do at their parties, and it doesn't take long before Kurt and Blaine take it over as something special they share together.
Prompt: Written for this prompt over on the kinkmeme. Basically "fluffy stoned!sex where nothing is awkward and everything just feels really, really good."
Notes: I honestly cannot believe how this fic grew. It was supposed to be just a fun little prompt fill to let me have a taste of writing happy!fic for a change, but it wound up gathering steam and getting bigger until it somehow turned itself into the first six months of Kurt and Blaine's relationship as shown through pot smoking. I hope that you guys enjoy!
One:
“I think the style adds to the experience, honestly,” Blaine insists from the driver’s seat, eyes fixed carefully on the road as they weave through the quiet streets and avenues of one of Westerville’s many suburbs. His mouth is pulled into that little half-smile it always gets when he and Kurt talk about serious subjects, as though attempting to lighten the heavier material with a positive attitude. “I mean, for sure, it can be hard to read at times -”
“At times?” Kurt asks dryly, raising an eyebrow he knows Blaine can’t see without taking his eyes off the road. “Blaine, that book was so Irish that I practically had to do a leprechaun impersonation as I read it to understand half the lines.”
“Kurt,” Blaine chastises, but Kurt can tell his heart isn’t in it. There’s a laugh lurking under the words, and his friend’s eyes are shining with amusement.
They’re on their way to a house party at Wes’s place, both of them in Blaine’s car to save on gas and reduce their impact on the environment because Blaine’s disgustingly considerate that way. The car itself is a compact little silver Toyota sedan, a marked step down from the rest of the Anderson family vehicles in terms of quality and expense from what Kurt has seen visiting their house. It is so resolutely mid-range and mediocre that Kurt rather suspects Blaine had to fight to make his parents settle for anything less than extraordinary.
It isn’t too often that Kurt gets a chance to travel somewhere without being in the driver’s seat himself. They rarely take Blaine’s car when they go somewhere together, and Kurt has grown quite accustomed to being in control of any vehicle he finds himself in. But being in the passenger seat for Blaine...
Kurt is fairly sure he should feel guilty for how much he enjoys these infrequent opportunities to ride shotgun in Blaine’s car. For one thing, it gives him a chance to stare unabashedly at his friend under the guise of conversation without being creepy. To look and study the way Blaine tenses the muscles in his neck when he drives, the way he holds the steering wheel with confident-but-gentle hands. The way he glances over every so often and grins when Kurt shares a particularly funny anecdote or comment.
For another thing, Blaine only wears his glasses when he drives. Which... yeah, not something Kurt has ever been into before or with anyone else, but on Blaine specifically? Oh, god, is he ever. It helps that the thin black frames go perfectly with his outfit today, Kurt notes as he scans the other boy up and down covertly. Nestled behind his ears with his dark hair curling around them, the frames only highlight the soft grey of Blaine’s long-sleeved cardigan, completely buttoned up over the deep red of the shirt beneath. Unfortunately for Kurt, Blaine is always gorgeous. Gorgeous and kind and friendly and very, very much not into him.
As though sensing negative thoughts, Blaine darts a slightly worried glance in Kurt’s direction. All at once it occurs to Kurt that they were actually talking about something.
“You did like it, though, right?” Blaine asks, sounding concerned. “I mean, despite the extensive need for background information on Catholicism and World War One-era Ireland. You liked it?”
For a long moment, Kurt thinks. “I did,” he says eventually, trying to find the words even as he speaks them. “It was... kind of beautiful? And... you know, once you strip everything else away, it was really just about the two of them. And even though it didn’t end very well, it was... nice. To read about a connection like that.”
“For sure,” Blaine says, nodding as he turns into a side street. The houses are nicer here, with large green lawns and long driveways. “In the end, At Swim, Two Boys is really just a love story.” He turns and grins at Kurt. “It’s heartening, isn’t it? That two people can find each other, even in the most unlikely circumstances? And in comparison, things are so much easier for us now.”
“Definitely,” says Kurt weakly, feeling a familiar clutch of desolation at his chest. It seems so, so unfair that he and Blaine can do this - go to a party together, in Blaine’s car, and talk about romantic gay literature - and still somehow remain just friends. Kurt’s heart is still panging from the disaster that was the dull hit to his chest that was Valentine’s Day. And Blaine’s critique of his sexy faces. And the infamous Rachel-Berry-House-Party-Hetero-Kiss-Fest, which has been looming especially large at the back of his mind all week.
If Kurt hadn’t already promised Wes weeks ago that he’d be here, he’s not entirely sure if he would have been able to muster the courage to deal with Blaine at another party so soon. His last experience with Drunk Blaine was just... catastrophic. The idea of having to watch Blaine get riled up, and excitable, and interested in other people who aren’t him again makes Kurt feel sick with a dread he can only shove down hard and try to smile through.
“Here we are,” says Blaine cheerfully, slowing down and pulling over beside the kerb in front of one of many green lawns. He takes off his glasses and pops them back into their case, which gets tucked into one of the cup holders. Absently, Kurt glances out the window. The driveway is already full of cars, and... oh. Oh, wow.
“Sweet mother of god,” Kurt hisses, and Blaine laughs. The house in front of them is huge. Rolling and wide and at least three stories high, with a neatly manicured garden in front. Kurt can feel his mouth hanging open slightly in shock. “I thought Wes just lived with his parents and sister?”
“He does,” confirms Blaine with a grin, opening up his car door. Kurt follows suit, trying not to stare. None of his friends in Lima have houses that look anything like this, not even Quinn. Kurt hadn’t realized that he knew anyone in real life who lives like this; even Blaine’s house is tiny in comparison.
“I can’t believe I’ve been in the Warblers so long and I’ve never been to one of your parties,” says Kurt wonderingly, trying not to sound too bowled over by the sight in front of them. “Friday night dinners just clashed with so many of them, you know? And I’m pretty sure the chaperoned Christmas party with Nick and his parents just wasn’t quite the same.”
Ever considerate, Blaine comes around to his side of the car to take the glass tray of low-sodium lasagne off Kurt’s lap so that he can get himself out of the passenger side door with greater ease. (The lasagne has been brought along to satisfy the ‘potluck’ part of the evening: Hummels don’t do anything by halves, and Kurt had been quick to inform Blaine that an offering of a bag of chips and a two-litre of coke was an insult to potlucks everywhere.)
His heart strings slightly at the gentlemanly gesture, but Kurt pushes the feeling into the little box in his mind labelled ‘Things Blaine Does That I’m Not Allowed To Love About Him’ and tries to forget it. He slides out of the car, shuts the door, and the two of them begin to walk up the driveway.
“Mmm,” says Blaine quietly, not quite looking Kurt in the eye. “Actually, Kurt? There was something I wanted to talk about before we got here.”
“Oh?” Kurt asks lightly, eyes still fixed on the house in front of them. It has a freaking entranceway, holy hell.
“Yeah,” says Blaine, and for the first time Kurt realizes that he sounds slightly awkward. And maybe a little... embarrassed? Kurt’s body tenses against his will, ears perking up far too hopefully. They reach the main entrance, and Blaine fidgets uncomfortably with the lasagne still in hand. “This party... it might be slightly different to what you’re accustomed t-”
Before he can finish the sentence, the door swings open in front of them.
“Kurt!” a girl’s voice cries out, and before Kurt knows what’s going on a tiny red torpedo hits him right in the chest. He squeaks unattractively as the human missile that is Wes’s girlfriend collides, patting her gently on the back. “I thought I heard someone out here,” she says, muffled from her face being pressed up into his chest. “It’s so nice to see you!”
“Hi, Jess,” wheezes Kurt, slightly afraid for his second-hand Marc Jacobs shirt but mostly genuinely happy to see her.
“Hey, Jess,” says Blaine, sounding slightly put out. For a moment Kurt wonders what Blaine was trying to tell him - before Jessica gives his ribcage a squeeze so hard it pushes the air right out of him, which is sufficiently distracting.
She pulls away after a few seconds, turning a dangerously dry look in Blaine’s direction. Kurt chokes in a breath. “Hello, stranger,” she says, raising an eyebrow in that perfectly-Wes way of hers. “I was beginning to think you’d had some sort of grizzly accident. Or run away and joined a stage show. Or left us for a theme park again. We never see you anymore, except for Wes at school -”
“I’m busy,” Blaine protests weakly. “It’s been midterms lately, and -”
“Hush,” she says, standing up on her tippy toes to give Blaine a kiss on the cheek. At all of five foot nothing, Jessica is one of the few people Blaine towers over. “I think we all know who you’re really spending all your time with,” she says, winking in Kurt’s direction. Suddenly Kurt’s cheeks feel very hot indeed.
Blaine, still holding the lasagne pan awkwardly in front of him, looks uncomfortable as well. “We’re not -” he begins, but she cuts him off.
“Anyways, come inside! Practically everyone’s here already, and you can put that down in the kitchen.”
Both of their cheeks a little too pink to ignore, the two of them trail inside after her.
--
Somewhere between joining Dalton’s show choir and walking in the front door of Wes’s house, Kurt had got it into his head that Warbler parties would be an all-male event. He’s both surprised and pleased at how wrong he is. Kurt had expected Jessica to be there, of course, but as it happens there are a goodly amount of girls in attendance. Sitting cross-legged on the floor or curled up on couches, or standing up at the punch bowl and chatting casually. David and Thad have both brought their girlfriends along, and Jeff’s best friend Mary from his hometown is perched on the couch next to him with what look oddly like Christmas lights dangling from her ears.
As anticipated, however, Wes and Jessica have the whole event running like a well-oiled machine. Kurt feels tired just watching them: darting from person to person, catching up quickly and refilling drinks and directing people toward the buffet table. (Kurt is smugly pleased to note that no one else seems to have brought anything explicitly as a main course, and that the lasagne tray is already half empty by an hour into the gathering. He knows that a person can’t exactly win at potlucks, but he likes to pretend that he can anyways.) Wes is suave and in control, and Jess is chatty and personable in a way that Kurt can never manage to find irritating. The two of them seem to frequently communicate without speaking out loud, catching one another’s eye across the room in order to convey messages.
Once everyone has arrived and settled in, Kurt accidentally catches a quick glimpse of the two of them in the kitchen. It’s a brief moment; Jessica is leaning into Wes’s shoulder while he wraps an arm around her and presses a quick kiss to her forehead. But it feels so private that Kurt can’t help but look away as he feels something strangled rise in his throat. If anyone is going to make it out of high school, he thinks, it’s those two.
The thought makes him feel strangely alone, even surrounded by so many people.
Despite the fact that Kurt purposefully doesn’t arrange it so, he and Blaine wind up spending a lot of the evening together. Strangely, Blaine practically trails after him like a slightly exuberant puppy; tagging along with Kurt to chat with Jeff, and then with Thad and his girlfriend, and later on the both of them join in the jam and sing “Timeless to Me” together and it isn’t even awful. The entire mood is light, and casual - a little bit pompous, maybe, but not offensively so. Just another thing that Kurt has had to grow accustomed to, going to Dalton. The students who attend are, for the most part, from a slightly higher tax bracket than he’s used to.
Plus, it’s hard not to feel a little bit pretentious surrounded by an environment like this one. Kurt is fairly certain that the living room rug cost more than his father makes in two months, and everything is lush and full of sheen in a way that indicates a great deal of money. None of the furniture is well-worn or broken in, and it’s such a contrast to the sorts of parties Kurt usually finds himself attending - and the jovial attitude of the teenagers therein is such a contrast to the quality of the decor - that it’s hard to believe he’s even here.
It’s about eleven o’clock by the time things begin to wind down. About half of the party’s attendants have decided that they won’t be staying the night, and have already begun to trickle home by the time the antiquated-looking grandfather clock begins tolling the hour. Those that remain are sprawled over the plush leather couches that remind Kurt of the ones in the Warbler practice room at school. One or two people are sitting cross-legged on the ground, but they’re all facing inwards toward one another as they chat about nothing in particular.
Blaine is sitting in the middle of one of the couches chatting idly with David, and Kurt is tucked in beside him. He’s nursing his second drink of the evening, and has been for some time. He made the decision before arriving that, if they were going to be spending the night anyways, he may as well indulge to a strict limit of two drinks for the evening. The first was a glass of pink punch from a large decorative bowl, and his current is half of a cider he’s decanted into a small glass.
There doesn’t seem much point in trying to abstain in the hopes of Blaine suddenly coming to his senses, anymore. Not after Rachel’s party, and how much easier it would’ve all been if he’d had the benefit of alcohol to dull the sharpness of the hurt. As long as he doesn’t get too sloppy, two drinks won’t be the end of the world. He has absolutely no desire to recreate the twisting, lurching slosh of too much, but he feels as though he’s playing it fairly safe.
And Blaine doesn’t even look that tipsy. It was another thing that had surprised Kurt about this gathering: the overall lack of alcohol, at least in comparison to the sorts of parties his friends from Lima had been having recently. There had been the punch bowl, and a few six packs of cider in the fridge, but it hadn’t amounted to much once distributed around to such a large number of people. Kurt’s feeling a little bit of a buzz, but he doubts anyone is at puking-on-your-counsellor’s-shoes levels of inebriation.
“It was hilarious,” says Thad animatedly, his girlfriend Diana nodding next to him with an amused smile on her face. Her curls bounce around her face with every movement. “Di’s cousin stood there wobbling at the front of the church, and we all thought it was nerves, right? But he opens his mouth to say the vows - and he’s completely plastered.”
“No,” says Blaine, looking honest-to-god horrified. Kurt lets out a tiny snort of laughter.
“Yep. Said his vows with a slur and almost toppled out of the church when it was all done. I’m fairly certain someone could annul that wedding on a technicality, if they wanted. Marriage under the influence,” Thad concludes solemnly.
Blaine shakes his head, still looking shocked, and it hits Kurt again what a very strange person his friend is. A romantic at heart who kisses people he barely knows at parties and serenades near-strangers in their workplace. A boy who so very clearly cares about doing what’s right and good, but is sometimes so clueless about Kurt’s feelings that it’s like a punch to the chest.
“Hey, Kurt,” calls Jessica, from across the circle where she and Wes are curled up on an oversized armchair together. She raises both eyebrows. “You know who turns into a real rapscallion when they overindulge? Our very own dear Blaine.”
“Oh, my god,” groans Blaine, shaking his head. He rests a hand on Kurt’s knee and smiles an embarrassed smile. “She’s exaggerating, Kurt, I swear -”
She’s not, Kurt thinks wryly, but he only crooks an eyebrow in response.
“Oh, you so do,” pipes Nick from the couch, and a bunch of the Warblers burst into laughter at some joke only known to them. Blaine’s face keeps on getting redder and redder.
Wes looks around appreciatively, a devious smile on his face. He clears his throat, and the laughter dies down. There’s a long pause before he finally begins to speak. “As I recall,” Wes begins, “there was a certain episode at New Year’s Eve one year ago...”
“Oh my god. Oh my god, Wes, no -”
“... where a certain someone got very, very inebriated from too much champagne...”
“Stop talking. Oh my god, please stop talking.”
“... and wound up draped all over myself and my lovely girlfriend -” here, Wes gives Jessica a squeeze. She’s looking across the room at Blaine with an evil look on her face, and Blaine is actually squirming. “-as we tried to put him to bed... and then proceeded to attempt to convince us that it would be an incredibly good idea to have a threesome.”
“What?” shouts Kurt, slapping a hand over his mouth. He can’t stop the laughter from bubbling up inside him, and luckily everyone else seems to be joining in too. He turns to face Blaine, whose face is buried in his hands. “You actually suggested that?”
“I hate you,” mutters Blaine, face buried in his hands. “I hate both of you, I don’t know what I was thinking. I was clearly way too drunk to see how awful and mean you both are.”
“Our boy loses half his brain when he overindulges,” says Jessica, shaking her head. “It’s shameful. I’m surprised our friendship has ever recovered.”
Everyone laughs again, and fortunately for the state of Blaine’s already bright red face the conversation turns to something else. The grin stays on Kurt’s face for a lot longer than it should, however. In a strange way, it feels almost as though something has physically lifted off of his chest. Maybe Drunk Blaine isn’t the most enormous douchebag in the world; maybe Blaine, when drunk, just gets... a little bit easy. Strangely enough, it’s actually the better option.
And maybe, if Blaine ever decides to have a complete change of heart and realize that oops, no, Kurt was completely right for me all along! , all Kurt will have to do to make their relationship workable is keep Blaine and alcohol entirely separate when other people are around.
It doesn’t seem like a very likely turn of events at this point, but Kurt is ever hopeful.
The conversation drifts and flutters, both of them chiming in occasionally, and at some point Blaine puts his hand between the two of them to rest and his knuckles brush against Kurt’s jeans-clad legs. He drifts them absently up and down in tiny movements that Kurt is sure aren’t intentional at all, but they still make sparks fly up and down his legs nonetheless. It’s unfair, how much Blaine affects him without even knowing. So very, very unfair.
The conversation lulls and drifts, and Kurt is barely even aware of the quiet anticipation hanging over all of them until Wes clears his throat a few minutes later. Everyone pauses, most of them turning to look at the councilman with semi-expectant looks on their faces.
“So,” Wes says after a while, looking around the room with an assured look on his face. “Anyone feel like smoking?”
The question is such a complete shock to Kurt that he feels his mouth fall open. Next to him, Blaine tenses slightly; his fingers stop their absent movement against Kurt’s thigh. A few people are nodding, and there are a couple of ‘yeah, sure’s and ‘that sounds fun’s from the remaining partygoers.
Dumbstruck, Kurt cannot manage to wipe the astonishment off his face. He honestly had no idea that any of the Warblers smoked cigarettes, and what a stupid thing to do, they’re vocal group, they’re going to ruin their voices for Christ’s sake.
Maybe it’s cigars, he thinks desperately, wondering if those are better or worse. They seem classier, anyways. More refined-looking? He doesn’t know enough about them to judge. And suddenly it hits him that oh, my god, does Blaine smoke? Kurt can’t imagine that Blaine could have hidden something like that for him for so long, even if it was only at parties, but the whole notion of Blaine’s beautiful mouth filled up with tar-smogged sludge is just so repulsive that he’s beginning to regret coming here in the first place. If that’s true, he just doesn’t want to know. Doesn’t want his mental image of Blaine to be ruined that way: it’s already too fragile and hanging on by a thread as it is.
There is absolutely no way Kurt Hummel is smoking tonight, and there is no way in hell he’s hanging around to watch other people do it either. Cigarettes are addictive, and unpleasant, and they smell disgusting, and he’s more than a little bit disappointed in everyone around him.
He’s just about to beg off - to say something pithy like I cannot abide the scent of tobacco, gentlemen; I’ll stay in here, if that’s quite all right - when he realizes that, while people are moving, none of them are headed toward the patio door. Instead, they seem to be chatting and lowering themselves down onto the carpet into an almost-circle, and Wes has left to go up to his room for something, and Blaine is sending him this absurd little apologetic look with his eyebrows all furrowed up, and suddenly Kurt very much wants to know how this party might be slightly different from what Kurt is accustomed to -
When Wes returns, at first Kurt thinks that he’s holding some kind of tremendously ugly vase. It’s made of blue glass, with a bulbous bottom and a tall cylinder of a top. The dark-haired boy is clutching a small metal box in his other hand, and for some reason that is what makes Kurt clue in before anything else does.
“That’s... that’s a bong,” says Kurt weakly, voice too-high and almost squeaky in the room. He only recognizes the thing from the stupid movies Puck sometimes brings over for him and Finn to watch; he’s certainly never seen one in real life before.
“It is,” says Blaine guiltily, wincing. “I really did mean to tell you.”
Wes places the metal tin on the ground in the middle of them, and then heads over into the kitchen. The sound of running water drifts out after a few moments, and Jessica hoists herself up and follows him in.
“I don’t,” says Kurt, sounding feeble and not sure what he’s even trying to say. “I can’t even - you guys smoke marijuana?” Even knowing that it’s stupid to do so, Kurt can’t help his voice from lowering into a hiss on the last word, as though he’s afraid of a policeman hearing his normal voice from miles away and coming running. He can’t take his eyes of the small metal box.
“Not all the time,” Blaine hurries to explain, looking pained. He reaches up and runs an anxious hand through his hair. “Not very much, really. And not all of us. Jeff doesn’t, and neither does Carmen.” He gestures toward David’s girlfriend, who seems to be playing some sort of game on her phone. “I didn’t even know if anyone was going to want to tonight, but... yeah. We do, sometimes.” He bites down on his lower lip. “Are you angry at me? Please don’t be angry at me.”
The laugh bursts out of Kurt’s chest all at once, in an undignified near-splutter of sound.
“Oh my god,” chokes Kurt, still laughing almost too hard to speak. There are tears of mirth gathering at the corners of his eyes. Blaine is looking at him as though he’s lost his mind, which really is just even funnier. “Oh my god, Blaine, do you have any idea how ridiculous you all look? Privileged little private school boys playing with drugs for fun at parties, oh my god.” He dissolves into helpless giggles again.
Blaine’s brow furrows together, and not in a particularly good way. “It’s not that funny,” he says, just this side of petulant, and Kurt can’t help but snicker at the look on his face. But a few moments later, Wes comes back into the living room, and this time the blue glass container has a small amount of water sloshing in the bottom, and suddenly this all seems much less humorous and a whole lot more imminent.
His giggles die away, but Blaine seems to understand. He immediately places a warm hand on Kurt’s arm and leans in with a reassuring look on his face. “You don’t have to,” he says firmly but quietly, giving his head a shake. All at once, Kurt realizes how everyone else in the room seems to be carefully not paying them any attention. Jessica comes back in carrying a tray full of glasses of water, but she doesn’t say anything either. “No one will think badly of you, okay? I didn’t do it, for the first couple of parties. You never, ever have to do anything when you’re with me that makes you uncomfortable.”
“I know that,” Kurt almost snaps, realizing too late that the words come out a little bit too sharp. In front of him, Wes is opening up the metal box. Inside there’s a little pack of thin paper with part of the box torn away, two lighters, and a baggy full of little light green clusters Kurt can smell as soon as the lid was removed. The slightest hint of something sickly sweet is edging at his nose, and the opened box next to the bong makes such a picture that Kurt can barely believe he’s seeing it.
Jesus Christ, it’s like something out of a drug PSA.
“Where did you guys even get this stuff?” Kurt asks, still staring in disbelief at the array in front of him. Wes is sitting cross-legged in front of the box with Jessica by his side, breaking up the clumps up with his fingers. Separating seeds and stems with the practiced ease of someone who’s done it many times before. The smell is stronger, now. Drifting over and teasing at Kurt’s nose. It isn’t... bad, per se. It’s a smell he recognizes from fair grounds, and theme parks, and downtown Columbus. The way Brett from his Spanish class sometimes smells, only... fresher. Less stale. “Wealthy, white, upper-middle class drug dealers?”
David opens his mouth to reply, looking even more gleeful than usual, and Kurt raises his hand in the air to cut him off.
“Oh, lord, why am I even asking?” Kurt asks, massaging his temple with his unoccupied hand. “David’s older brother, right? It’s always David’s older brother.”
“Yep,” says David, nodding cheerfully. “Mike’s great. He lives in Columbus, but comes home every couple of weekends. He’s always happy to bring us the kinds of things that aren’t easy for us to get around here.”
According to Blaine, Michael Thompson has been scoring alcohol for Dave, Wes, and their friends since the two of them were fourteen. Kurt met him once, when he’d come to visit David at Dalton. Attractive and dark, like his brother, Mike is handsome and wears nice jackets and smiles more than anyone Kurt had ever met. Sometimes, he wonders if every member of the Thompson family is on happy pills.
Oh my god, maybe they are.
“But... aren’t you guys afraid of getting caught? Or getting in trouble?” Kurt asks, feeling slightly overwhelmed. For a second, he imagines his father’s face if he was forced to come pick his son up from the police station. He shudders at the idea.
“Ohio’s marijuana possession penalties are some of the most lenient in the country when it comes to personal use,” explains Wes calmly, still breaking up the clumps with his fingers. He raises his gaze to give Kurt a sardonic smile. “None of us want to risk our potential careers, of course. But as long as the amount is under one hundred grams - which this most definitely is - if we got caught, it wouldn’t even go on our criminal record. A one hundred and fifty dollar fine, and a minor misdemeanour.” Wes shrugs. “Not that any of us intend to get caught. That’s why we’re doing this here; the smell will be completely gone by the time my parents get back, and this way we won’t have to wander around outside looking for trouble.”
In front of him, Wes is packing the little metal spout of the bong full of broken up pieces of marijuana. Blaine gives his arm a squeeze, and the touch unintentionally sends shivers down Kurt’s spine.
“Aren’t... aren’t you guys worried about your voices?” asks Kurt, grasping at straws.
“We don’t do this much,” pipes up Nick, grinning widely. “And we keeping winning competitions anyways, so. No, not really.”
“Seriously,” says Blaine, looking concerned. “You don’t have to do anything. I would never, ever pressure you.”
The tone in Blaine’s voice makes Kurt’s whole body tense up. It’s almost... patronizing. As though Kurt’s going to break. Going to shatter into a million pieces from the sight of one of his friends doing something mildly illegal. Irrationally, it makes Kurt frustrated. Makes him want to sit up straight and lean in close and whisper have you ever met Noah Puckerman? right into Blaine’s perfect, gorgeous face.
He doesn’t, though. Because against his better judgement, Kurt is starting to feel... curious. What does it feel like? How does it work? Kurt knows the way alcohol feels, even if he doesn’t always like it. Dimmed down and liquid, and the twist in his stomach that comes when he’s had too much. But he has absolutely no idea what smoking pot would feel like.
Once, Kurt sat through half of one of Puck’s stupid stoner movies. He had been waiting for a roast to come out of the oven and had nothing better to do, and Puck and Finn had whined at him to come on, man, it’s funny; come watch. He’d seen the characters grin like morons and say stupid things, guffawing and snorting and being idiots for the camera, and he remembers feeling disdainful. Annoyed at them, even, for being classless and stupid and he so much better than them.
But the people he’s with right now... these are his friends. Who have always been kind, if a little bit weird, and never once bullied him or intentionally made him feel small. These are people he respects, who are going to go on to become the lawyers and doctors and economists of tomorrow. There is nothing stupid about the people gathered around him, or laughable. They aren’t a joke, or a punchline, or something to poke fun at. They’re going somewhere.
So instead of saying, “thank you, Blaine, but I have no interest in taking part of your shameful illegal drug use,” Kurt turns to Blaine and asks “are you going to?”
And Blaine blinks. Bites down on his bottom lip, and looks up at Kurt with this look on his face. “I am,” he says, half-shrugging. There’s a smile pulling at the corners of his lips. “I... I kinda like it. I like the way it makes me feel. Floaty. And happy, and just... relaxed. I don’t do it much, but... yeah. I’m going to, tonight, if that’s okay with you.”
More than anything else, relaxed is what convinces him. As a rule, Kurt is not a very relaxed person. He just isn’t. He has to look a certain way, act a certain way, take care of his family in a certain way that just doesn’t allow for it. And he can’t slip. Can’t ever, ever slip. It’s what people have been shouting at him in the hallways at McKinley for years before he transferred to Dalton. Why don’t you take a chill pill, gay boy and bet the faggot fucking enjoys having that stick up his ass. Kurt needs to take care of himself, and his dad, and everyone he cares about, and letting down his guard - even for a second - is too dangerous to try.
But here... this is a safe place. With people he trusts, who have never belittled him. Who won’t think that he’s stupid for not knowing what he’s doing, or for messing something up. Maybe here, in this space, he can finally relax.
“Okay,” says Kurt quietly, before he’s even fully registered the words. He feels quietly shocked; surreal. “But I have no idea what to do.”
“You don’t have to -” begins Blaine, but Kurt sends him a look that so very clearly says Blaine Anderson, don’t you dare, I will cut you that he backs off immediately.
“All right,” says Wes, in that perfectly even tone of voice that says he wouldn’t have minded either way what Kurt had decided to do. It makes him feel calmer, for some reason. Less anxious. “How about you we start with me, and we’ll go around the circle clockwise so that you can watch a few of us and see what we do. Blaine can explain the logistics of it while we work our way around.” David shoots Wes a light, private look that Kurt doesn’t understand. “Does that sound good?”
Kurt nods, shares a look with Blaine - and the two of them lower themselves off the leather couch and onto the floor to join the circle.
I can’t believe I’m doing this. Oh, my god, I can’t believe I’m doing this.
Across from him, Wes picks up one of the lighters in the box. Blaine leans in close to his ear and begins to explain the process unfolding in front of them through step by step. His breath is hot on the side of Kurt’s neck, he’s so close, and for the life of him Kurt can’t explain why the smell of Blaine’s breath is so pleasant to him. It’s warm, and masculine, and so perfectly Blaine in all the right ways.
“Okay,” Blaine whispers, gesturing in front of them with one finger extended. His lip grazes briefly over Kurt’s ear, and Kurt shivers. “You see how the little metal thing is packed with weed? That’s called the bowl. The idea is that you put your finger over the carb - that’s the little hole on the side, see how Wes has his thumb over it? - and light the pot in the bowl with the lighter. It can take a bit of coordination to get it down, so don’t worry if you slip up the first time. See how Wes is getting it with the lighter so it’s burning a teeny bit red? That’s perfect. Now, you keep the bong between your legs, put your lips over the top, and inhale.”
“That’s when I breathe in the smoke?” asks Kurt, already feeling mildly overwhelmed. Wes has the blue glass of the bong cradled in his lap, and is inhaling deeply with his finger over the side and a lighter in front of the bowl. The whole chamber of it seems to be filling up with thick coils of smoke.
“No,” says Blaine softly, shaking his head. “You’re just making the smoke then. When the bong’s all full, you take your finger off the carb - Wes is doing it now, look - and suck in all the smoke. And you don’t want to leave any in there. It’s... bad manners, I guess?”
“There are bad manners for marijuana consumption?” Kurt asks sceptically, and Blaine lets out a small snort of laughter beside him. He watches as Wes takes his finger off the hole, breathes in - and all of the smoke in the bong disappears, pulled into Wes’s lungs. The dark-haired boy keeps his lips pressed tightly together, and Kurt can see the muscles in his throat are twitching slightly. After a few seconds, Wes opens his mouth - and exhales a stream of thick, coiled smoke into the air.
The smell fills the room much, much stronger than before. It’s almost sickly sweet, thick and cloying, but also... organic?... in a way that Kurt actually finds pleasant. Almost green. It doesn’t make him want to scrunch up his nose and recoil in the same way cigarette smoke does. Wes smiles, and passes the bong right away to Jessica on his left.
“There are, actually,” says Blaine patiently, as though he’s explaining algebra homework or the harmonizing for a Warbler’s piece, and not how to consume illegal drugs. “Like... you don’t want to mess up the order in which people smoke, and you’re going to want to pass it on once you’re done. And you definitely don’t want to exhale into the chamber - the part at the top? It makes the pot all wet and gross.”
“And whatever you do,” says Nick roguishly, as Jessica exhales a long, thin coil of smoke into the air and passes the bong toward him. “Don’t spill the bong water.”
“Yes,” agrees Wes, and Kurt is almost shocked to see that his eyes are already a tiny bit red around the rims. He’s blinking the smallest amount more than he usually does. “Please don’t. Really. It can stink up a place for days, and I’d rather if my parents didn’t know the details of my dastardly life of delinquency.”
Scrunching up his nose, Kurt nods. “Duly noted,” he says simply, watching in fascination as Nick inhales deeply and makes the water in the bong bubble - before sucking the smoke up into his lungs. After only a few seconds, he coughs noisily. Long coughs, loud coughs; they start off small and shallow, but soon lead to a full-on coughing fit. Jessica hands him one of the glasses of water, and after what sounds like a great deal of hacking he’s able to swallow a gulp.
“Sorry,” Nick chokes. “Haven’t done that in a while.”
The bong works its way around the circle as Blaine explains to him that the bowl will need to be repacked every five people or so, depending on how much smoke people choose to make. Some of them take drags - “hits”, Blaine calls them - that are so big Kurt can’t help himself from being impressed, and other times people take in fairly small amounts of smoke. Kurt can’t quite figure out the reasoning for it, and he’s already starting to get anxious about his turn.
Light the bowl, cover the carb, inhale until it’s full, thumb off the carb, suck in the smoke. Light the bowl, cover the carb, inhale until it’s full, thumb off the carb, suck in the smoke.
What if he makes a mistake? Or coughs? Or - oh, god - what if nothing happens? What if Kurt does all the right things, and tries and tries, and nothing happens at all? Will Blaine confiscate it, looking at him sadly and shaking his head, saying guess you’re just not quite cut out for this, Kurt as he shrugs his shoulders? Or what if he inhales the smoke, and everything goes fine, but it doesn’t affect him at all? What if Kurt is just broken when it comes to marijuana, and everyone else starts having fun while he sits there, totally normal, feeling nothing?
The room is already getting muzzy by the time the bong gets to Blaine next to him; the smoke stings at Kurt’s eyes in an almost pleasant way, and the entirety of Wes’s living room looks ever-so-slightly hazy. Jessica has already put two glasses of water in front of them on the floor. Blaine takes the bong from Thad, catches Kurt’s eye, and proceeds to light the bong in the slowest, most drawn-out way imaginable - as though he’s letting Kurt see a how-to manual with his demonstration. Kurt is just seconds away from saying, it’s fine, honestly, I’ve seen it already, I’m just nervous about doing it - when Blaine starts to inhale, fills up the cavity, and then draws the smoke into his mouth.
And oh, Jesus fuck, it’s just about the hottest thing Kurt’s ever seen.
This is absurd, thinks Kurt desperately, as he watches the smoke disappear through the glass of the chamber and in between Blaine’s lips. I should absolutely not be finding this attractive at all. The muscles in Blaine’s neck tense up as he inhales deeply, his Adam’s apple shifting ever-so-slightly, and Kurt realizes he’s never noticed what an incredible throat Blaine has. Developed and strong but not overly muscled, with his skin that little bit darker than Kurt’s is. Blaine pulls away when all of the smoke is gone, long eyelashes fluttering as he holds it inside his mouth. He blinks hard once, twice, and then -
- and then exhales a gorgeous, perfect stream of smoke out into the air, mouth curved into an unfairly lovely little circle as the coils twist out of his lips and float gentle into the air. Blaine catches his eye again, laughs self-consciously - and a tiny, almost unnoticeable puff of smoke escapes his lips.
Fucking. Hell.
When Blaine smiles at him, his eyes are even warmer and more beautiful than usual. “Your turn,” he says, mouth turned up in a larger than life smile, and before frowning down at the marijuana in the metal spout. He asks for the little metal tin and packs the bowl again fresh just for him, scooping the burnt ashes out and replacing them with fresh green clusters. It takes a while, but Kurt can’t keep his eyes off Blaine’s fingers, deftly moving as though this is something he’s done umpteen times before. And before Kurt even has the faculties to be worried again, Blaine is handing him the bong with an encouraging smile on his face, and this is it.
Only shaking the tiniest bit, Kurt takes the glass vessel in hand. He tries to cradle it in front of his torso as he’s seen other people do, and it takes him a second to find a comfortable position. Once he does, he picks up the lighter, flicking it until it catches, and gives it a try.
His first attempt is a bit of a bungle. It’s one thing to watch everyone else in the circle complete a routine they’ve done many times before, or to go over the steps in his head; in practice, however, it’s actually quite a complicated routine. He has a hard time lining up keeping the lighter lit with having this thumb over the hole with breathing in, and after a few botched tries he feels a warm hand skim over his own.
“Here,” says Blaine shyly, taking the lighter from his hand and flicking it so that it catches alight. “Let me.” The curly-haired boy moves the lighter in front of the bowl so that Kurt doesn’t have to, keeping eye contact all the while, and Kurt lets out a shiver that has nothing to do with nerves before he gives it another try.
This time, it works. As he inhales, smoke begins to fill up the bowl, twisting and growing inside as he makes the water bubble, and Kurt’s so happy he could beam. Until he realizes that, actually, he’s sort of used up all of his air already, and how the hell is he supposed to suck in to get the smoke without any breath?
Blaine seems to sense his semi-frantic internal dilemma. “Keep your thumb over the carb and put your other hand flat over the top to hold the smoke in, Kurt, and you can catch a breath. I’ve got it, here, don’t worry -”
Following his instructions, Kurt breaks away just long enough to slide his palm flat over the top of the bong. It traps the smoke inside while he takes a deep breath. Blaine is holding the bond in place for him. He takes one last look around the circle at his friends once he’s breathing normally; some people are watching him, others aren’t. He slips his hand away - and inhales the smoke in one quick, hard breath.
I’m smoking marijuana. I’m actually smoking marijuana.
It’s over so quickly he barely has time to register what it feels like. It doesn’t hurt, as Kurt’s almost expecting it to, and it doesn’t make him cough. He can feel the potential for one teasing at the edges of his through, but he pushes the feeling down. It’s smoother than he’s expecting, not as hot - there’s a slight burn in his throat and mouth as he holds the smoke inside, but it isn’t unbearable at all. The flavour is incredibly pronounced, though; he can taste it in the back of his throat. Thick and sticky as he holds to warm smoke inside his lips.
Not wanting to be rude and accidentally hog the bong, Kurt passes it to Mary on his other side. The effort makes Kurt lets out a tiny breath of air through his nose - and to his shock, two tiny coils of smoke escape, like from a dragon’s snout. He holds the smoke in his mouth for five seconds, ten seconds - and when he finally decides it’s enough, opens his lips and lets a long stream of smoke out into the air.
“Well done!” exclaims Blaine, his smile still unusually wide and delighted-looking. He gives Kurt a squeeze on the knee. “How do you feel?”
Kurt smiles back, feeling a bit weak-kneed but pretty good overall. He takes a minute to think about it. The taste of it is still strong and pronounced in his mouth; sticky and thick and sweet, slightly dryer than it was before. He’d expected it to feel hotter - but maybe it wasn’t because of the water in the bottom? He tries to remember something about sophomore physics class, but can’t quite remember the science behind water and heat and temperatures. He doesn’t feel different, though. Not really.
“The same,” Kurt says eventually, nodding deeply. He can feel a piece of his hair come loose and tumble down onto his cheek, but he doesn’t bother to push it aside. It tickles. “I thought it would - I don’t know. Happen right away? I feel mostly the same.”
“It does that,” says Blaine, nodding seriously with that ridiculous smile still on his face. He hands Kurt a glass of water, which Kurt takes a long drink from without being otherwise prompted. The water feels cool in his throat. “It takes a little while. To kick in.”
From out of the corner of his eye, Kurt can see Wes and David - as well as a few other Warblers, and Jessica - giving the two of them a sideways look. But it doesn’t matter, really, because Kurt’s just realized something amazing.
“You’re smiley!” he exclaims, mouth falling open in delight. “It - marijuana, I don’t know, weed - it makes you smiley, and we’ve barely done any!”
“It does not,” protests Blaine weakly, trying to school his features into seriousness. It doesn’t work, however, and after a moment the two of them are beaming at one another again.
By the time the bong works its way over to them again, Kurt is starting to feel... something. He doesn’t even know if he can attribute it to the drug. It’s the slightest lilt of the world tugging at his perspective, the smallest of imbalances despite the fact that he’s sitting straight and tall as he usually does. There’s a sway to his movement that he’s not entirely sure is real, or in his head. An almost unnoticeable tingle in his skin. Kurt almost feels floaty.
I’m defying gravity, he thinks stupidly as Blaine hands him the bong again, and he moves to take this hit without any help.
Kurt does cough, this time around, but long after the bong’s been taken away and he’s even managed to hold the smoke in for a few seconds. It doesn’t stop, though, which is a little bit worrying. Building up and up from something small to something large, until the couch is clutching at his chest and Blaine’s hand is rubbing little circles in his back and it’s a long time before he gets his breath back. And oh, god, that just. It feels better than it should, the way Blaine’s palm smoothes over the fabric of his button-up. Catching at it as the touch ripples over his back, delicious in a way that just isn’t fair.
“Clothes,” Kurt blurts out loudly, and the half of the circle immersed in conversation turns to look at him. He blushes, but keeps on going. “My clothes. I don’t want them to get - gross, or smelly, or ruined. Blaine? Are my clothes going to get ruined?”
“No,” says Wes calmly, but the telltale furrowed guilt in Blaine’s eyes lets Kurt know that his friend is far more aware of Kurt’s levels of personal hygiene than their host is. He starts to loosen his own tie, sliding the shiny red material open and tugging it gently up over his neck. Then he reaches up to start the buttons of his navy shirt. They’re complicated, he realizes. Harder than he remembers them being to undo.
“Um. Kurt?” asks Jeff, sounding amused. He’s been sitting behind his girlfriend as she smokes, chatting and socializing without actually consuming any himself. “Why are you taking your clothes off, buddy?”
“What?” Kurt asks stupidly, blinking. The third button really is very difficult to undo, and his fingers keep slipping. Everyone in the room seems a little more distant than they should. “I don’t want them to get smoky,” he explains, because honestly. He just said that.
“... so is nudity the endgame plan, here?” asks David, looking intrigued, and oh sweet god Kurt honestly hadn’t thought of that. He feels his face flush bright red, heart pounding a little fast in his chest. The whole is a bit off-kilter around him, and his limbs feel light.
“I -” Kurt starts, because words are a little more complicated to speak than he’s used to right now, but Blaine cuts in smoothly.
“Did you bring pyjamas?” asks Blaine, eyes shining with soft amusement, but it isn’t cruel. Kurt isn’t being made fun of. Kurt nods, and Blaine inhales and licks his lips. “Why don’t you just - change into those? And then your clothes will remain pristine and smoke-free.”
“Okay,” Kurt nods, and moves to stand up before he remembers something important. He hesitates, before poking Blaine on the shoulder. Blaine blinks. “I don’t know where the bathroom is,” Kurt admits quietly, and Blaine giggles.
“I’ll take you,” says Blaine, pushing himself up into a standing position and extending a hand for Kurt to take. Ever the gentleman, even with his eyes red and the smell of smoke at his lips. “Sometimes I think I know Wes’s house better than my own, I’ve spent so much time here since I transferred.”
Kurt slides his hand into Blaine’s, which - god, does touching Blaine always feel this way? It’s as though there are nerves in his hand Kurt never even knew were there: every inch of skin on skin is so perceptible, as is the way Blaine’s fingers squeeze and move around his own. It’s all more in a way he doesn’t think he could ever explain with words. Blaine pulls him unsteadily to his feet, stabilizes him with his other hand, and oh. The world spins a little bit at the movement, and his head feels a bit rushy.
“Come on,” says Blaine, leading him out by the hand, and Kurt isn’t anywhere near intoxicated enough to miss the raised eyebrow that Jessica gives them as they leave. Blaine opens the door with his free hand, guides them out -
-and it’s like stepping out of a sauna, my god.
“It’s... really smoky in there,” says Kurt pointlessly as they step into the much clearer air of the hallway. It’s crisp and almost cold in the hall, fresh and easy to breathe in. “I didn’t even really notice.”
“Mmm,” agrees Blaine happily, and walk to the entrance to grab Kurt’s satchel. And they’re still holding hands, which, yeah, Kurt isn’t opposed to at all. It feels amazing, like Blaine’s the only thing he’s connected to in the world even as his feet are solid on the hardwood floor. Is this something friends do? Maybe it’s just something Blaines do. He had taken Kurt’s hand and led them down a fancy hallway the first time they met, too, after all.
“Parallels,” says Kurt contentedly, and Blaine hums in agreement even though Kurt is fairly sure he didn’t actually make any sense. The dark seems to wrap around them in a more tangible way than Kurt is used to, tangling in their limbs.
“I think I’m a little bit high,” admits Kurt after a moment, as their footsteps thrum-thrum-thrum on the hall runner carpet. “Not much, but. A little bit. I think. It’s hard to tell.”
Blaine laughs. “I think I’m a little bit high, too,” he says, giving Kurt’s hand a squeeze, and oh god Kurt must be at least a little gone, because there is no way a simple clasp of hands can possibly be so amazingly sexy in real life. He’s been saying for years that the touch of a fingertips is as sexy as it gets, yes, but he’d meant more along the lines of romantic and not actually, problematically sexy.
When they arrive at what Kurt can only assume is the main bathroom, Blaine ushers him inside with his curls falling loose around his ears and that too-big grin still fixed firmly on his face. Kurt flicks on the light, closes the door to shut Blaine out - and the nearly-sterile brightness of it all is such a shock after the dim of the hall.
The mirror behind the elaborate taps is large and luxurious: no one here would ever have to invest in a dresser mirror just to be able to see their own face properly in the morning. Kurt catches sight of his reflection, and stares.
The only word that comes to mind is debauched. His usually china-doll pale skin is flushed and heated in the soft rounds of his cheeks, and there are several strands of hair escaping from his hairstyle. Trailing along the side of his cheek, his face, each one like a mark of indulgence. His eyes are brighter than usual, more green than blue in this light - and, god, his eyes are just as squinty and bloodshot as Blaine’s are. Whenever he tilts his head, he can feel and almost see the drag of it moving in the air. There’s a wide, closed-lipped smile pulled across his face. His chest is heaving just a little bit.
You’re doing something illegal, a voice says inside his head. Something that most of your friends at McKinley probably haven’t done. Something that most of the people in your life probably haven’t done.
Kurt tips his head forward, bits down on his lip - and laughs, clear and high, as the two Kurts staring back at one another share in the joke.
--
When Kurt finally emerges - he’d had to actually use the bathroom, he’d realized while he was inside, and the buttons on his shirt really were more complicated than is strictly fair - he finds Blaine waiting for him. Leaned up against the wall with his eyes closed, humming something Kurt vaguely recognizes as radio music and swaying slightly back and forth. Blaine turns a few seconds late at the sound of the door opening, eyeing him up and down.
For the first time, Kurt realizes that wearing his pyjamas does actually mean that people are going to see him in his pyjamas. Oh, damn it.
“Super cute,” says Blaine quietly, tugging at the lapel of the blue satin shirt. Kurt feels more heat rise in his face.
“Thank you,” he says quickly. “Armani. Second-hand. My dad and I took a weekend trip to Cleveland last year, and I found them in the bargain bin at a thrift store.”
Which... yeah, Kurt does actually try tremendously hard not to let on where and how he gets the clothes he wears - especially around his friends from Dalton - so the drugs must be affecting his mental filter as well. Because for all that they’re amazing people, for the most part the Warblers simply do not understand. They can’t comprehend the experience of working at your dad’s business for forty hours a week to save up enough money to buy a few new, genuine, precious pieces of designer clothing - only to have them get soaked in cherry slushie and forever ruined three days into the school year.
But Blaine doesn’t seem to be laughing at him. “Of course you did,” he says, eyes shining, and he takes Kurt’s hand again and leads them back to the living room.
By the time they arrive back, the bong is sitting off to the side and everyone seems to be sitting or draped across the ground or couches in various states of awake or staring or chatting or drowsing. There’s music playing on the expensive sound system; something soft and lilting and soothing, with heavy instrumentals and a strong baseline.
For a second, Kurt feels disappointed. He’d actually really, really been enjoying the evening, and he almost feels upset that they either missed the last round or everyone else decided they’d had enough. Because Kurt isn’t sure, actually, that he’s had enough. He could probably have done more, if they’d let him.
“C’mon,” Blaine says, tugging him into the middle of the circle where there’s a large space left open. Both of them lie down on the plush carpet, and very suddenly Kurt isn’t upset at all anymore. He’s just... comfortable. The muscles in his body are all unwound and loose, and he’s already in his pyjamas so he’s fairly certain that he’s more comfortable than everyone else in the room combined. Kurt can feel Blaine next to him, pressed a little bit up against his side for lack of room, and the smell of Blaine is all around him.
It’s nice, and warm, and human like this. Kurt presses his face into Blaine’s shoulder, inhaling deeply to take in the smell, and Blaine sighs happily beside him.
“Do they realize that they’re...?” someone’s voice asks from above them, but they’re quickly silenced by what sounds like about six people hissing shhhhhh. Kurt can’t tell exactly who, though, or why, because his eyes are closed as the world floats softly around him. He reaches up to run a hand through Blaine’s hair, because he wants to and because it seems like a good idea, and Blaine makes a pleased little noise and leans into the touch. The curls are soft and not too thick with product, and Kurt’s hand slides easily through them and along Blaine’s scalp, massaging in soft patterns. His hands are still hypersensitive, and it still feels a little bit like he can feel every individual hair on Blaine’s head.
The world drifts, and Kurt’s limbs feel happily light and heavy at the same time, and his whole world fills with the smell of Blaine as they lie together on the soft carpet. It is possibly the most at ease he’s felt in years.
He must drift to sleep, because at some point later they’re being shaken awake and tugged into standing positions. There are more lights off, now, and kind hands guide them into what Kurt can only assume is one of the house’s guest rooms. Kurt gets tucked into the bed right away, which is lovely and soft if cooler than the floor. He can hear at least two people talking quietly and the rustle of fabric off in the room somewhere. Wes, he thinks vaguely, drifting in and out. And Blaine.
When Blaine is guided into the bed as well - and it is Blaine, Kurt could tell on any kinds of drugs with his eyes shut and a gun pointed at his head - Kurt notices that he’s now wearing a soft shirt and flannel-y pants. The light goes off, and Wes’s voice says “goodnight, guys,” and Kurt can hear the soft click of a door closing right before he drifts off into gentle, foggy sleep with Blaine’s face tucked peacefully into the hollow of his neck.
Click here to continue on to the next part.
Also: I wrote something happy for once!! :D I hope you enjoy, even if something like this isn't usually your style!
<3
Title: Illicit (or 'Five times Kurt and Blaine smoked marijuana together and one time things got a little more out of hand')
Author: emilianadarling
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Kurt/Blaine
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Pot smoking, stoned!sex
Length: 40,500 words
Story Summary: Blaine leans close enough that their mouths are only an inch apart - and exhales a long stream of smoke right into Kurt’s mouth. Kurt learns about something the Warblers occasionally do at their parties, and it doesn't take long before Kurt and Blaine take it over as something special they share together.
Prompt: Written for this prompt over on the kinkmeme. Basically "fluffy stoned!sex where nothing is awkward and everything just feels really, really good."
Notes: I honestly cannot believe how this fic grew. It was supposed to be just a fun little prompt fill to let me have a taste of writing happy!fic for a change, but it wound up gathering steam and getting bigger until it somehow turned itself into the first six months of Kurt and Blaine's relationship as shown through pot smoking. I hope that you guys enjoy!
One:
“I think the style adds to the experience, honestly,” Blaine insists from the driver’s seat, eyes fixed carefully on the road as they weave through the quiet streets and avenues of one of Westerville’s many suburbs. His mouth is pulled into that little half-smile it always gets when he and Kurt talk about serious subjects, as though attempting to lighten the heavier material with a positive attitude. “I mean, for sure, it can be hard to read at times -”
“At times?” Kurt asks dryly, raising an eyebrow he knows Blaine can’t see without taking his eyes off the road. “Blaine, that book was so Irish that I practically had to do a leprechaun impersonation as I read it to understand half the lines.”
“Kurt,” Blaine chastises, but Kurt can tell his heart isn’t in it. There’s a laugh lurking under the words, and his friend’s eyes are shining with amusement.
They’re on their way to a house party at Wes’s place, both of them in Blaine’s car to save on gas and reduce their impact on the environment because Blaine’s disgustingly considerate that way. The car itself is a compact little silver Toyota sedan, a marked step down from the rest of the Anderson family vehicles in terms of quality and expense from what Kurt has seen visiting their house. It is so resolutely mid-range and mediocre that Kurt rather suspects Blaine had to fight to make his parents settle for anything less than extraordinary.
It isn’t too often that Kurt gets a chance to travel somewhere without being in the driver’s seat himself. They rarely take Blaine’s car when they go somewhere together, and Kurt has grown quite accustomed to being in control of any vehicle he finds himself in. But being in the passenger seat for Blaine...
Kurt is fairly sure he should feel guilty for how much he enjoys these infrequent opportunities to ride shotgun in Blaine’s car. For one thing, it gives him a chance to stare unabashedly at his friend under the guise of conversation without being creepy. To look and study the way Blaine tenses the muscles in his neck when he drives, the way he holds the steering wheel with confident-but-gentle hands. The way he glances over every so often and grins when Kurt shares a particularly funny anecdote or comment.
For another thing, Blaine only wears his glasses when he drives. Which... yeah, not something Kurt has ever been into before or with anyone else, but on Blaine specifically? Oh, god, is he ever. It helps that the thin black frames go perfectly with his outfit today, Kurt notes as he scans the other boy up and down covertly. Nestled behind his ears with his dark hair curling around them, the frames only highlight the soft grey of Blaine’s long-sleeved cardigan, completely buttoned up over the deep red of the shirt beneath. Unfortunately for Kurt, Blaine is always gorgeous. Gorgeous and kind and friendly and very, very much not into him.
As though sensing negative thoughts, Blaine darts a slightly worried glance in Kurt’s direction. All at once it occurs to Kurt that they were actually talking about something.
“You did like it, though, right?” Blaine asks, sounding concerned. “I mean, despite the extensive need for background information on Catholicism and World War One-era Ireland. You liked it?”
For a long moment, Kurt thinks. “I did,” he says eventually, trying to find the words even as he speaks them. “It was... kind of beautiful? And... you know, once you strip everything else away, it was really just about the two of them. And even though it didn’t end very well, it was... nice. To read about a connection like that.”
“For sure,” Blaine says, nodding as he turns into a side street. The houses are nicer here, with large green lawns and long driveways. “In the end, At Swim, Two Boys is really just a love story.” He turns and grins at Kurt. “It’s heartening, isn’t it? That two people can find each other, even in the most unlikely circumstances? And in comparison, things are so much easier for us now.”
“Definitely,” says Kurt weakly, feeling a familiar clutch of desolation at his chest. It seems so, so unfair that he and Blaine can do this - go to a party together, in Blaine’s car, and talk about romantic gay literature - and still somehow remain just friends. Kurt’s heart is still panging from the disaster that was the dull hit to his chest that was Valentine’s Day. And Blaine’s critique of his sexy faces. And the infamous Rachel-Berry-House-Party-Hetero-Kiss-Fest, which has been looming especially large at the back of his mind all week.
If Kurt hadn’t already promised Wes weeks ago that he’d be here, he’s not entirely sure if he would have been able to muster the courage to deal with Blaine at another party so soon. His last experience with Drunk Blaine was just... catastrophic. The idea of having to watch Blaine get riled up, and excitable, and interested in other people who aren’t him again makes Kurt feel sick with a dread he can only shove down hard and try to smile through.
“Here we are,” says Blaine cheerfully, slowing down and pulling over beside the kerb in front of one of many green lawns. He takes off his glasses and pops them back into their case, which gets tucked into one of the cup holders. Absently, Kurt glances out the window. The driveway is already full of cars, and... oh. Oh, wow.
“Sweet mother of god,” Kurt hisses, and Blaine laughs. The house in front of them is huge. Rolling and wide and at least three stories high, with a neatly manicured garden in front. Kurt can feel his mouth hanging open slightly in shock. “I thought Wes just lived with his parents and sister?”
“He does,” confirms Blaine with a grin, opening up his car door. Kurt follows suit, trying not to stare. None of his friends in Lima have houses that look anything like this, not even Quinn. Kurt hadn’t realized that he knew anyone in real life who lives like this; even Blaine’s house is tiny in comparison.
“I can’t believe I’ve been in the Warblers so long and I’ve never been to one of your parties,” says Kurt wonderingly, trying not to sound too bowled over by the sight in front of them. “Friday night dinners just clashed with so many of them, you know? And I’m pretty sure the chaperoned Christmas party with Nick and his parents just wasn’t quite the same.”
Ever considerate, Blaine comes around to his side of the car to take the glass tray of low-sodium lasagne off Kurt’s lap so that he can get himself out of the passenger side door with greater ease. (The lasagne has been brought along to satisfy the ‘potluck’ part of the evening: Hummels don’t do anything by halves, and Kurt had been quick to inform Blaine that an offering of a bag of chips and a two-litre of coke was an insult to potlucks everywhere.)
His heart strings slightly at the gentlemanly gesture, but Kurt pushes the feeling into the little box in his mind labelled ‘Things Blaine Does That I’m Not Allowed To Love About Him’ and tries to forget it. He slides out of the car, shuts the door, and the two of them begin to walk up the driveway.
“Mmm,” says Blaine quietly, not quite looking Kurt in the eye. “Actually, Kurt? There was something I wanted to talk about before we got here.”
“Oh?” Kurt asks lightly, eyes still fixed on the house in front of them. It has a freaking entranceway, holy hell.
“Yeah,” says Blaine, and for the first time Kurt realizes that he sounds slightly awkward. And maybe a little... embarrassed? Kurt’s body tenses against his will, ears perking up far too hopefully. They reach the main entrance, and Blaine fidgets uncomfortably with the lasagne still in hand. “This party... it might be slightly different to what you’re accustomed t-”
Before he can finish the sentence, the door swings open in front of them.
“Kurt!” a girl’s voice cries out, and before Kurt knows what’s going on a tiny red torpedo hits him right in the chest. He squeaks unattractively as the human missile that is Wes’s girlfriend collides, patting her gently on the back. “I thought I heard someone out here,” she says, muffled from her face being pressed up into his chest. “It’s so nice to see you!”
“Hi, Jess,” wheezes Kurt, slightly afraid for his second-hand Marc Jacobs shirt but mostly genuinely happy to see her.
“Hey, Jess,” says Blaine, sounding slightly put out. For a moment Kurt wonders what Blaine was trying to tell him - before Jessica gives his ribcage a squeeze so hard it pushes the air right out of him, which is sufficiently distracting.
She pulls away after a few seconds, turning a dangerously dry look in Blaine’s direction. Kurt chokes in a breath. “Hello, stranger,” she says, raising an eyebrow in that perfectly-Wes way of hers. “I was beginning to think you’d had some sort of grizzly accident. Or run away and joined a stage show. Or left us for a theme park again. We never see you anymore, except for Wes at school -”
“I’m busy,” Blaine protests weakly. “It’s been midterms lately, and -”
“Hush,” she says, standing up on her tippy toes to give Blaine a kiss on the cheek. At all of five foot nothing, Jessica is one of the few people Blaine towers over. “I think we all know who you’re really spending all your time with,” she says, winking in Kurt’s direction. Suddenly Kurt’s cheeks feel very hot indeed.
Blaine, still holding the lasagne pan awkwardly in front of him, looks uncomfortable as well. “We’re not -” he begins, but she cuts him off.
“Anyways, come inside! Practically everyone’s here already, and you can put that down in the kitchen.”
Both of their cheeks a little too pink to ignore, the two of them trail inside after her.
--
Somewhere between joining Dalton’s show choir and walking in the front door of Wes’s house, Kurt had got it into his head that Warbler parties would be an all-male event. He’s both surprised and pleased at how wrong he is. Kurt had expected Jessica to be there, of course, but as it happens there are a goodly amount of girls in attendance. Sitting cross-legged on the floor or curled up on couches, or standing up at the punch bowl and chatting casually. David and Thad have both brought their girlfriends along, and Jeff’s best friend Mary from his hometown is perched on the couch next to him with what look oddly like Christmas lights dangling from her ears.
As anticipated, however, Wes and Jessica have the whole event running like a well-oiled machine. Kurt feels tired just watching them: darting from person to person, catching up quickly and refilling drinks and directing people toward the buffet table. (Kurt is smugly pleased to note that no one else seems to have brought anything explicitly as a main course, and that the lasagne tray is already half empty by an hour into the gathering. He knows that a person can’t exactly win at potlucks, but he likes to pretend that he can anyways.) Wes is suave and in control, and Jess is chatty and personable in a way that Kurt can never manage to find irritating. The two of them seem to frequently communicate without speaking out loud, catching one another’s eye across the room in order to convey messages.
Once everyone has arrived and settled in, Kurt accidentally catches a quick glimpse of the two of them in the kitchen. It’s a brief moment; Jessica is leaning into Wes’s shoulder while he wraps an arm around her and presses a quick kiss to her forehead. But it feels so private that Kurt can’t help but look away as he feels something strangled rise in his throat. If anyone is going to make it out of high school, he thinks, it’s those two.
The thought makes him feel strangely alone, even surrounded by so many people.
Despite the fact that Kurt purposefully doesn’t arrange it so, he and Blaine wind up spending a lot of the evening together. Strangely, Blaine practically trails after him like a slightly exuberant puppy; tagging along with Kurt to chat with Jeff, and then with Thad and his girlfriend, and later on the both of them join in the jam and sing “Timeless to Me” together and it isn’t even awful. The entire mood is light, and casual - a little bit pompous, maybe, but not offensively so. Just another thing that Kurt has had to grow accustomed to, going to Dalton. The students who attend are, for the most part, from a slightly higher tax bracket than he’s used to.
Plus, it’s hard not to feel a little bit pretentious surrounded by an environment like this one. Kurt is fairly certain that the living room rug cost more than his father makes in two months, and everything is lush and full of sheen in a way that indicates a great deal of money. None of the furniture is well-worn or broken in, and it’s such a contrast to the sorts of parties Kurt usually finds himself attending - and the jovial attitude of the teenagers therein is such a contrast to the quality of the decor - that it’s hard to believe he’s even here.
It’s about eleven o’clock by the time things begin to wind down. About half of the party’s attendants have decided that they won’t be staying the night, and have already begun to trickle home by the time the antiquated-looking grandfather clock begins tolling the hour. Those that remain are sprawled over the plush leather couches that remind Kurt of the ones in the Warbler practice room at school. One or two people are sitting cross-legged on the ground, but they’re all facing inwards toward one another as they chat about nothing in particular.
Blaine is sitting in the middle of one of the couches chatting idly with David, and Kurt is tucked in beside him. He’s nursing his second drink of the evening, and has been for some time. He made the decision before arriving that, if they were going to be spending the night anyways, he may as well indulge to a strict limit of two drinks for the evening. The first was a glass of pink punch from a large decorative bowl, and his current is half of a cider he’s decanted into a small glass.
There doesn’t seem much point in trying to abstain in the hopes of Blaine suddenly coming to his senses, anymore. Not after Rachel’s party, and how much easier it would’ve all been if he’d had the benefit of alcohol to dull the sharpness of the hurt. As long as he doesn’t get too sloppy, two drinks won’t be the end of the world. He has absolutely no desire to recreate the twisting, lurching slosh of too much, but he feels as though he’s playing it fairly safe.
And Blaine doesn’t even look that tipsy. It was another thing that had surprised Kurt about this gathering: the overall lack of alcohol, at least in comparison to the sorts of parties his friends from Lima had been having recently. There had been the punch bowl, and a few six packs of cider in the fridge, but it hadn’t amounted to much once distributed around to such a large number of people. Kurt’s feeling a little bit of a buzz, but he doubts anyone is at puking-on-your-counsellor’s-shoes levels of inebriation.
“It was hilarious,” says Thad animatedly, his girlfriend Diana nodding next to him with an amused smile on her face. Her curls bounce around her face with every movement. “Di’s cousin stood there wobbling at the front of the church, and we all thought it was nerves, right? But he opens his mouth to say the vows - and he’s completely plastered.”
“No,” says Blaine, looking honest-to-god horrified. Kurt lets out a tiny snort of laughter.
“Yep. Said his vows with a slur and almost toppled out of the church when it was all done. I’m fairly certain someone could annul that wedding on a technicality, if they wanted. Marriage under the influence,” Thad concludes solemnly.
Blaine shakes his head, still looking shocked, and it hits Kurt again what a very strange person his friend is. A romantic at heart who kisses people he barely knows at parties and serenades near-strangers in their workplace. A boy who so very clearly cares about doing what’s right and good, but is sometimes so clueless about Kurt’s feelings that it’s like a punch to the chest.
“Hey, Kurt,” calls Jessica, from across the circle where she and Wes are curled up on an oversized armchair together. She raises both eyebrows. “You know who turns into a real rapscallion when they overindulge? Our very own dear Blaine.”
“Oh, my god,” groans Blaine, shaking his head. He rests a hand on Kurt’s knee and smiles an embarrassed smile. “She’s exaggerating, Kurt, I swear -”
She’s not, Kurt thinks wryly, but he only crooks an eyebrow in response.
“Oh, you so do,” pipes Nick from the couch, and a bunch of the Warblers burst into laughter at some joke only known to them. Blaine’s face keeps on getting redder and redder.
Wes looks around appreciatively, a devious smile on his face. He clears his throat, and the laughter dies down. There’s a long pause before he finally begins to speak. “As I recall,” Wes begins, “there was a certain episode at New Year’s Eve one year ago...”
“Oh my god. Oh my god, Wes, no -”
“... where a certain someone got very, very inebriated from too much champagne...”
“Stop talking. Oh my god, please stop talking.”
“... and wound up draped all over myself and my lovely girlfriend -” here, Wes gives Jessica a squeeze. She’s looking across the room at Blaine with an evil look on her face, and Blaine is actually squirming. “-as we tried to put him to bed... and then proceeded to attempt to convince us that it would be an incredibly good idea to have a threesome.”
“What?” shouts Kurt, slapping a hand over his mouth. He can’t stop the laughter from bubbling up inside him, and luckily everyone else seems to be joining in too. He turns to face Blaine, whose face is buried in his hands. “You actually suggested that?”
“I hate you,” mutters Blaine, face buried in his hands. “I hate both of you, I don’t know what I was thinking. I was clearly way too drunk to see how awful and mean you both are.”
“Our boy loses half his brain when he overindulges,” says Jessica, shaking her head. “It’s shameful. I’m surprised our friendship has ever recovered.”
Everyone laughs again, and fortunately for the state of Blaine’s already bright red face the conversation turns to something else. The grin stays on Kurt’s face for a lot longer than it should, however. In a strange way, it feels almost as though something has physically lifted off of his chest. Maybe Drunk Blaine isn’t the most enormous douchebag in the world; maybe Blaine, when drunk, just gets... a little bit easy. Strangely enough, it’s actually the better option.
And maybe, if Blaine ever decides to have a complete change of heart and realize that oops, no, Kurt was completely right for me all along! , all Kurt will have to do to make their relationship workable is keep Blaine and alcohol entirely separate when other people are around.
It doesn’t seem like a very likely turn of events at this point, but Kurt is ever hopeful.
The conversation drifts and flutters, both of them chiming in occasionally, and at some point Blaine puts his hand between the two of them to rest and his knuckles brush against Kurt’s jeans-clad legs. He drifts them absently up and down in tiny movements that Kurt is sure aren’t intentional at all, but they still make sparks fly up and down his legs nonetheless. It’s unfair, how much Blaine affects him without even knowing. So very, very unfair.
The conversation lulls and drifts, and Kurt is barely even aware of the quiet anticipation hanging over all of them until Wes clears his throat a few minutes later. Everyone pauses, most of them turning to look at the councilman with semi-expectant looks on their faces.
“So,” Wes says after a while, looking around the room with an assured look on his face. “Anyone feel like smoking?”
The question is such a complete shock to Kurt that he feels his mouth fall open. Next to him, Blaine tenses slightly; his fingers stop their absent movement against Kurt’s thigh. A few people are nodding, and there are a couple of ‘yeah, sure’s and ‘that sounds fun’s from the remaining partygoers.
Dumbstruck, Kurt cannot manage to wipe the astonishment off his face. He honestly had no idea that any of the Warblers smoked cigarettes, and what a stupid thing to do, they’re vocal group, they’re going to ruin their voices for Christ’s sake.
Maybe it’s cigars, he thinks desperately, wondering if those are better or worse. They seem classier, anyways. More refined-looking? He doesn’t know enough about them to judge. And suddenly it hits him that oh, my god, does Blaine smoke? Kurt can’t imagine that Blaine could have hidden something like that for him for so long, even if it was only at parties, but the whole notion of Blaine’s beautiful mouth filled up with tar-smogged sludge is just so repulsive that he’s beginning to regret coming here in the first place. If that’s true, he just doesn’t want to know. Doesn’t want his mental image of Blaine to be ruined that way: it’s already too fragile and hanging on by a thread as it is.
There is absolutely no way Kurt Hummel is smoking tonight, and there is no way in hell he’s hanging around to watch other people do it either. Cigarettes are addictive, and unpleasant, and they smell disgusting, and he’s more than a little bit disappointed in everyone around him.
He’s just about to beg off - to say something pithy like I cannot abide the scent of tobacco, gentlemen; I’ll stay in here, if that’s quite all right - when he realizes that, while people are moving, none of them are headed toward the patio door. Instead, they seem to be chatting and lowering themselves down onto the carpet into an almost-circle, and Wes has left to go up to his room for something, and Blaine is sending him this absurd little apologetic look with his eyebrows all furrowed up, and suddenly Kurt very much wants to know how this party might be slightly different from what Kurt is accustomed to -
When Wes returns, at first Kurt thinks that he’s holding some kind of tremendously ugly vase. It’s made of blue glass, with a bulbous bottom and a tall cylinder of a top. The dark-haired boy is clutching a small metal box in his other hand, and for some reason that is what makes Kurt clue in before anything else does.
“That’s... that’s a bong,” says Kurt weakly, voice too-high and almost squeaky in the room. He only recognizes the thing from the stupid movies Puck sometimes brings over for him and Finn to watch; he’s certainly never seen one in real life before.
“It is,” says Blaine guiltily, wincing. “I really did mean to tell you.”
Wes places the metal tin on the ground in the middle of them, and then heads over into the kitchen. The sound of running water drifts out after a few moments, and Jessica hoists herself up and follows him in.
“I don’t,” says Kurt, sounding feeble and not sure what he’s even trying to say. “I can’t even - you guys smoke marijuana?” Even knowing that it’s stupid to do so, Kurt can’t help his voice from lowering into a hiss on the last word, as though he’s afraid of a policeman hearing his normal voice from miles away and coming running. He can’t take his eyes of the small metal box.
“Not all the time,” Blaine hurries to explain, looking pained. He reaches up and runs an anxious hand through his hair. “Not very much, really. And not all of us. Jeff doesn’t, and neither does Carmen.” He gestures toward David’s girlfriend, who seems to be playing some sort of game on her phone. “I didn’t even know if anyone was going to want to tonight, but... yeah. We do, sometimes.” He bites down on his lower lip. “Are you angry at me? Please don’t be angry at me.”
The laugh bursts out of Kurt’s chest all at once, in an undignified near-splutter of sound.
“Oh my god,” chokes Kurt, still laughing almost too hard to speak. There are tears of mirth gathering at the corners of his eyes. Blaine is looking at him as though he’s lost his mind, which really is just even funnier. “Oh my god, Blaine, do you have any idea how ridiculous you all look? Privileged little private school boys playing with drugs for fun at parties, oh my god.” He dissolves into helpless giggles again.
Blaine’s brow furrows together, and not in a particularly good way. “It’s not that funny,” he says, just this side of petulant, and Kurt can’t help but snicker at the look on his face. But a few moments later, Wes comes back into the living room, and this time the blue glass container has a small amount of water sloshing in the bottom, and suddenly this all seems much less humorous and a whole lot more imminent.
His giggles die away, but Blaine seems to understand. He immediately places a warm hand on Kurt’s arm and leans in with a reassuring look on his face. “You don’t have to,” he says firmly but quietly, giving his head a shake. All at once, Kurt realizes how everyone else in the room seems to be carefully not paying them any attention. Jessica comes back in carrying a tray full of glasses of water, but she doesn’t say anything either. “No one will think badly of you, okay? I didn’t do it, for the first couple of parties. You never, ever have to do anything when you’re with me that makes you uncomfortable.”
“I know that,” Kurt almost snaps, realizing too late that the words come out a little bit too sharp. In front of him, Wes is opening up the metal box. Inside there’s a little pack of thin paper with part of the box torn away, two lighters, and a baggy full of little light green clusters Kurt can smell as soon as the lid was removed. The slightest hint of something sickly sweet is edging at his nose, and the opened box next to the bong makes such a picture that Kurt can barely believe he’s seeing it.
Jesus Christ, it’s like something out of a drug PSA.
“Where did you guys even get this stuff?” Kurt asks, still staring in disbelief at the array in front of him. Wes is sitting cross-legged in front of the box with Jessica by his side, breaking up the clumps up with his fingers. Separating seeds and stems with the practiced ease of someone who’s done it many times before. The smell is stronger, now. Drifting over and teasing at Kurt’s nose. It isn’t... bad, per se. It’s a smell he recognizes from fair grounds, and theme parks, and downtown Columbus. The way Brett from his Spanish class sometimes smells, only... fresher. Less stale. “Wealthy, white, upper-middle class drug dealers?”
David opens his mouth to reply, looking even more gleeful than usual, and Kurt raises his hand in the air to cut him off.
“Oh, lord, why am I even asking?” Kurt asks, massaging his temple with his unoccupied hand. “David’s older brother, right? It’s always David’s older brother.”
“Yep,” says David, nodding cheerfully. “Mike’s great. He lives in Columbus, but comes home every couple of weekends. He’s always happy to bring us the kinds of things that aren’t easy for us to get around here.”
According to Blaine, Michael Thompson has been scoring alcohol for Dave, Wes, and their friends since the two of them were fourteen. Kurt met him once, when he’d come to visit David at Dalton. Attractive and dark, like his brother, Mike is handsome and wears nice jackets and smiles more than anyone Kurt had ever met. Sometimes, he wonders if every member of the Thompson family is on happy pills.
Oh my god, maybe they are.
“But... aren’t you guys afraid of getting caught? Or getting in trouble?” Kurt asks, feeling slightly overwhelmed. For a second, he imagines his father’s face if he was forced to come pick his son up from the police station. He shudders at the idea.
“Ohio’s marijuana possession penalties are some of the most lenient in the country when it comes to personal use,” explains Wes calmly, still breaking up the clumps with his fingers. He raises his gaze to give Kurt a sardonic smile. “None of us want to risk our potential careers, of course. But as long as the amount is under one hundred grams - which this most definitely is - if we got caught, it wouldn’t even go on our criminal record. A one hundred and fifty dollar fine, and a minor misdemeanour.” Wes shrugs. “Not that any of us intend to get caught. That’s why we’re doing this here; the smell will be completely gone by the time my parents get back, and this way we won’t have to wander around outside looking for trouble.”
In front of him, Wes is packing the little metal spout of the bong full of broken up pieces of marijuana. Blaine gives his arm a squeeze, and the touch unintentionally sends shivers down Kurt’s spine.
“Aren’t... aren’t you guys worried about your voices?” asks Kurt, grasping at straws.
“We don’t do this much,” pipes up Nick, grinning widely. “And we keeping winning competitions anyways, so. No, not really.”
“Seriously,” says Blaine, looking concerned. “You don’t have to do anything. I would never, ever pressure you.”
The tone in Blaine’s voice makes Kurt’s whole body tense up. It’s almost... patronizing. As though Kurt’s going to break. Going to shatter into a million pieces from the sight of one of his friends doing something mildly illegal. Irrationally, it makes Kurt frustrated. Makes him want to sit up straight and lean in close and whisper have you ever met Noah Puckerman? right into Blaine’s perfect, gorgeous face.
He doesn’t, though. Because against his better judgement, Kurt is starting to feel... curious. What does it feel like? How does it work? Kurt knows the way alcohol feels, even if he doesn’t always like it. Dimmed down and liquid, and the twist in his stomach that comes when he’s had too much. But he has absolutely no idea what smoking pot would feel like.
Once, Kurt sat through half of one of Puck’s stupid stoner movies. He had been waiting for a roast to come out of the oven and had nothing better to do, and Puck and Finn had whined at him to come on, man, it’s funny; come watch. He’d seen the characters grin like morons and say stupid things, guffawing and snorting and being idiots for the camera, and he remembers feeling disdainful. Annoyed at them, even, for being classless and stupid and he so much better than them.
But the people he’s with right now... these are his friends. Who have always been kind, if a little bit weird, and never once bullied him or intentionally made him feel small. These are people he respects, who are going to go on to become the lawyers and doctors and economists of tomorrow. There is nothing stupid about the people gathered around him, or laughable. They aren’t a joke, or a punchline, or something to poke fun at. They’re going somewhere.
So instead of saying, “thank you, Blaine, but I have no interest in taking part of your shameful illegal drug use,” Kurt turns to Blaine and asks “are you going to?”
And Blaine blinks. Bites down on his bottom lip, and looks up at Kurt with this look on his face. “I am,” he says, half-shrugging. There’s a smile pulling at the corners of his lips. “I... I kinda like it. I like the way it makes me feel. Floaty. And happy, and just... relaxed. I don’t do it much, but... yeah. I’m going to, tonight, if that’s okay with you.”
More than anything else, relaxed is what convinces him. As a rule, Kurt is not a very relaxed person. He just isn’t. He has to look a certain way, act a certain way, take care of his family in a certain way that just doesn’t allow for it. And he can’t slip. Can’t ever, ever slip. It’s what people have been shouting at him in the hallways at McKinley for years before he transferred to Dalton. Why don’t you take a chill pill, gay boy and bet the faggot fucking enjoys having that stick up his ass. Kurt needs to take care of himself, and his dad, and everyone he cares about, and letting down his guard - even for a second - is too dangerous to try.
But here... this is a safe place. With people he trusts, who have never belittled him. Who won’t think that he’s stupid for not knowing what he’s doing, or for messing something up. Maybe here, in this space, he can finally relax.
“Okay,” says Kurt quietly, before he’s even fully registered the words. He feels quietly shocked; surreal. “But I have no idea what to do.”
“You don’t have to -” begins Blaine, but Kurt sends him a look that so very clearly says Blaine Anderson, don’t you dare, I will cut you that he backs off immediately.
“All right,” says Wes, in that perfectly even tone of voice that says he wouldn’t have minded either way what Kurt had decided to do. It makes him feel calmer, for some reason. Less anxious. “How about you we start with me, and we’ll go around the circle clockwise so that you can watch a few of us and see what we do. Blaine can explain the logistics of it while we work our way around.” David shoots Wes a light, private look that Kurt doesn’t understand. “Does that sound good?”
Kurt nods, shares a look with Blaine - and the two of them lower themselves off the leather couch and onto the floor to join the circle.
I can’t believe I’m doing this. Oh, my god, I can’t believe I’m doing this.
Across from him, Wes picks up one of the lighters in the box. Blaine leans in close to his ear and begins to explain the process unfolding in front of them through step by step. His breath is hot on the side of Kurt’s neck, he’s so close, and for the life of him Kurt can’t explain why the smell of Blaine’s breath is so pleasant to him. It’s warm, and masculine, and so perfectly Blaine in all the right ways.
“Okay,” Blaine whispers, gesturing in front of them with one finger extended. His lip grazes briefly over Kurt’s ear, and Kurt shivers. “You see how the little metal thing is packed with weed? That’s called the bowl. The idea is that you put your finger over the carb - that’s the little hole on the side, see how Wes has his thumb over it? - and light the pot in the bowl with the lighter. It can take a bit of coordination to get it down, so don’t worry if you slip up the first time. See how Wes is getting it with the lighter so it’s burning a teeny bit red? That’s perfect. Now, you keep the bong between your legs, put your lips over the top, and inhale.”
“That’s when I breathe in the smoke?” asks Kurt, already feeling mildly overwhelmed. Wes has the blue glass of the bong cradled in his lap, and is inhaling deeply with his finger over the side and a lighter in front of the bowl. The whole chamber of it seems to be filling up with thick coils of smoke.
“No,” says Blaine softly, shaking his head. “You’re just making the smoke then. When the bong’s all full, you take your finger off the carb - Wes is doing it now, look - and suck in all the smoke. And you don’t want to leave any in there. It’s... bad manners, I guess?”
“There are bad manners for marijuana consumption?” Kurt asks sceptically, and Blaine lets out a small snort of laughter beside him. He watches as Wes takes his finger off the hole, breathes in - and all of the smoke in the bong disappears, pulled into Wes’s lungs. The dark-haired boy keeps his lips pressed tightly together, and Kurt can see the muscles in his throat are twitching slightly. After a few seconds, Wes opens his mouth - and exhales a stream of thick, coiled smoke into the air.
The smell fills the room much, much stronger than before. It’s almost sickly sweet, thick and cloying, but also... organic?... in a way that Kurt actually finds pleasant. Almost green. It doesn’t make him want to scrunch up his nose and recoil in the same way cigarette smoke does. Wes smiles, and passes the bong right away to Jessica on his left.
“There are, actually,” says Blaine patiently, as though he’s explaining algebra homework or the harmonizing for a Warbler’s piece, and not how to consume illegal drugs. “Like... you don’t want to mess up the order in which people smoke, and you’re going to want to pass it on once you’re done. And you definitely don’t want to exhale into the chamber - the part at the top? It makes the pot all wet and gross.”
“And whatever you do,” says Nick roguishly, as Jessica exhales a long, thin coil of smoke into the air and passes the bong toward him. “Don’t spill the bong water.”
“Yes,” agrees Wes, and Kurt is almost shocked to see that his eyes are already a tiny bit red around the rims. He’s blinking the smallest amount more than he usually does. “Please don’t. Really. It can stink up a place for days, and I’d rather if my parents didn’t know the details of my dastardly life of delinquency.”
Scrunching up his nose, Kurt nods. “Duly noted,” he says simply, watching in fascination as Nick inhales deeply and makes the water in the bong bubble - before sucking the smoke up into his lungs. After only a few seconds, he coughs noisily. Long coughs, loud coughs; they start off small and shallow, but soon lead to a full-on coughing fit. Jessica hands him one of the glasses of water, and after what sounds like a great deal of hacking he’s able to swallow a gulp.
“Sorry,” Nick chokes. “Haven’t done that in a while.”
The bong works its way around the circle as Blaine explains to him that the bowl will need to be repacked every five people or so, depending on how much smoke people choose to make. Some of them take drags - “hits”, Blaine calls them - that are so big Kurt can’t help himself from being impressed, and other times people take in fairly small amounts of smoke. Kurt can’t quite figure out the reasoning for it, and he’s already starting to get anxious about his turn.
Light the bowl, cover the carb, inhale until it’s full, thumb off the carb, suck in the smoke. Light the bowl, cover the carb, inhale until it’s full, thumb off the carb, suck in the smoke.
What if he makes a mistake? Or coughs? Or - oh, god - what if nothing happens? What if Kurt does all the right things, and tries and tries, and nothing happens at all? Will Blaine confiscate it, looking at him sadly and shaking his head, saying guess you’re just not quite cut out for this, Kurt as he shrugs his shoulders? Or what if he inhales the smoke, and everything goes fine, but it doesn’t affect him at all? What if Kurt is just broken when it comes to marijuana, and everyone else starts having fun while he sits there, totally normal, feeling nothing?
The room is already getting muzzy by the time the bong gets to Blaine next to him; the smoke stings at Kurt’s eyes in an almost pleasant way, and the entirety of Wes’s living room looks ever-so-slightly hazy. Jessica has already put two glasses of water in front of them on the floor. Blaine takes the bong from Thad, catches Kurt’s eye, and proceeds to light the bong in the slowest, most drawn-out way imaginable - as though he’s letting Kurt see a how-to manual with his demonstration. Kurt is just seconds away from saying, it’s fine, honestly, I’ve seen it already, I’m just nervous about doing it - when Blaine starts to inhale, fills up the cavity, and then draws the smoke into his mouth.
And oh, Jesus fuck, it’s just about the hottest thing Kurt’s ever seen.
This is absurd, thinks Kurt desperately, as he watches the smoke disappear through the glass of the chamber and in between Blaine’s lips. I should absolutely not be finding this attractive at all. The muscles in Blaine’s neck tense up as he inhales deeply, his Adam’s apple shifting ever-so-slightly, and Kurt realizes he’s never noticed what an incredible throat Blaine has. Developed and strong but not overly muscled, with his skin that little bit darker than Kurt’s is. Blaine pulls away when all of the smoke is gone, long eyelashes fluttering as he holds it inside his mouth. He blinks hard once, twice, and then -
- and then exhales a gorgeous, perfect stream of smoke out into the air, mouth curved into an unfairly lovely little circle as the coils twist out of his lips and float gentle into the air. Blaine catches his eye again, laughs self-consciously - and a tiny, almost unnoticeable puff of smoke escapes his lips.
Fucking. Hell.
When Blaine smiles at him, his eyes are even warmer and more beautiful than usual. “Your turn,” he says, mouth turned up in a larger than life smile, and before frowning down at the marijuana in the metal spout. He asks for the little metal tin and packs the bowl again fresh just for him, scooping the burnt ashes out and replacing them with fresh green clusters. It takes a while, but Kurt can’t keep his eyes off Blaine’s fingers, deftly moving as though this is something he’s done umpteen times before. And before Kurt even has the faculties to be worried again, Blaine is handing him the bong with an encouraging smile on his face, and this is it.
Only shaking the tiniest bit, Kurt takes the glass vessel in hand. He tries to cradle it in front of his torso as he’s seen other people do, and it takes him a second to find a comfortable position. Once he does, he picks up the lighter, flicking it until it catches, and gives it a try.
His first attempt is a bit of a bungle. It’s one thing to watch everyone else in the circle complete a routine they’ve done many times before, or to go over the steps in his head; in practice, however, it’s actually quite a complicated routine. He has a hard time lining up keeping the lighter lit with having this thumb over the hole with breathing in, and after a few botched tries he feels a warm hand skim over his own.
“Here,” says Blaine shyly, taking the lighter from his hand and flicking it so that it catches alight. “Let me.” The curly-haired boy moves the lighter in front of the bowl so that Kurt doesn’t have to, keeping eye contact all the while, and Kurt lets out a shiver that has nothing to do with nerves before he gives it another try.
This time, it works. As he inhales, smoke begins to fill up the bowl, twisting and growing inside as he makes the water bubble, and Kurt’s so happy he could beam. Until he realizes that, actually, he’s sort of used up all of his air already, and how the hell is he supposed to suck in to get the smoke without any breath?
Blaine seems to sense his semi-frantic internal dilemma. “Keep your thumb over the carb and put your other hand flat over the top to hold the smoke in, Kurt, and you can catch a breath. I’ve got it, here, don’t worry -”
Following his instructions, Kurt breaks away just long enough to slide his palm flat over the top of the bong. It traps the smoke inside while he takes a deep breath. Blaine is holding the bond in place for him. He takes one last look around the circle at his friends once he’s breathing normally; some people are watching him, others aren’t. He slips his hand away - and inhales the smoke in one quick, hard breath.
I’m smoking marijuana. I’m actually smoking marijuana.
It’s over so quickly he barely has time to register what it feels like. It doesn’t hurt, as Kurt’s almost expecting it to, and it doesn’t make him cough. He can feel the potential for one teasing at the edges of his through, but he pushes the feeling down. It’s smoother than he’s expecting, not as hot - there’s a slight burn in his throat and mouth as he holds the smoke inside, but it isn’t unbearable at all. The flavour is incredibly pronounced, though; he can taste it in the back of his throat. Thick and sticky as he holds to warm smoke inside his lips.
Not wanting to be rude and accidentally hog the bong, Kurt passes it to Mary on his other side. The effort makes Kurt lets out a tiny breath of air through his nose - and to his shock, two tiny coils of smoke escape, like from a dragon’s snout. He holds the smoke in his mouth for five seconds, ten seconds - and when he finally decides it’s enough, opens his lips and lets a long stream of smoke out into the air.
“Well done!” exclaims Blaine, his smile still unusually wide and delighted-looking. He gives Kurt a squeeze on the knee. “How do you feel?”
Kurt smiles back, feeling a bit weak-kneed but pretty good overall. He takes a minute to think about it. The taste of it is still strong and pronounced in his mouth; sticky and thick and sweet, slightly dryer than it was before. He’d expected it to feel hotter - but maybe it wasn’t because of the water in the bottom? He tries to remember something about sophomore physics class, but can’t quite remember the science behind water and heat and temperatures. He doesn’t feel different, though. Not really.
“The same,” Kurt says eventually, nodding deeply. He can feel a piece of his hair come loose and tumble down onto his cheek, but he doesn’t bother to push it aside. It tickles. “I thought it would - I don’t know. Happen right away? I feel mostly the same.”
“It does that,” says Blaine, nodding seriously with that ridiculous smile still on his face. He hands Kurt a glass of water, which Kurt takes a long drink from without being otherwise prompted. The water feels cool in his throat. “It takes a little while. To kick in.”
From out of the corner of his eye, Kurt can see Wes and David - as well as a few other Warblers, and Jessica - giving the two of them a sideways look. But it doesn’t matter, really, because Kurt’s just realized something amazing.
“You’re smiley!” he exclaims, mouth falling open in delight. “It - marijuana, I don’t know, weed - it makes you smiley, and we’ve barely done any!”
“It does not,” protests Blaine weakly, trying to school his features into seriousness. It doesn’t work, however, and after a moment the two of them are beaming at one another again.
By the time the bong works its way over to them again, Kurt is starting to feel... something. He doesn’t even know if he can attribute it to the drug. It’s the slightest lilt of the world tugging at his perspective, the smallest of imbalances despite the fact that he’s sitting straight and tall as he usually does. There’s a sway to his movement that he’s not entirely sure is real, or in his head. An almost unnoticeable tingle in his skin. Kurt almost feels floaty.
I’m defying gravity, he thinks stupidly as Blaine hands him the bong again, and he moves to take this hit without any help.
Kurt does cough, this time around, but long after the bong’s been taken away and he’s even managed to hold the smoke in for a few seconds. It doesn’t stop, though, which is a little bit worrying. Building up and up from something small to something large, until the couch is clutching at his chest and Blaine’s hand is rubbing little circles in his back and it’s a long time before he gets his breath back. And oh, god, that just. It feels better than it should, the way Blaine’s palm smoothes over the fabric of his button-up. Catching at it as the touch ripples over his back, delicious in a way that just isn’t fair.
“Clothes,” Kurt blurts out loudly, and the half of the circle immersed in conversation turns to look at him. He blushes, but keeps on going. “My clothes. I don’t want them to get - gross, or smelly, or ruined. Blaine? Are my clothes going to get ruined?”
“No,” says Wes calmly, but the telltale furrowed guilt in Blaine’s eyes lets Kurt know that his friend is far more aware of Kurt’s levels of personal hygiene than their host is. He starts to loosen his own tie, sliding the shiny red material open and tugging it gently up over his neck. Then he reaches up to start the buttons of his navy shirt. They’re complicated, he realizes. Harder than he remembers them being to undo.
“Um. Kurt?” asks Jeff, sounding amused. He’s been sitting behind his girlfriend as she smokes, chatting and socializing without actually consuming any himself. “Why are you taking your clothes off, buddy?”
“What?” Kurt asks stupidly, blinking. The third button really is very difficult to undo, and his fingers keep slipping. Everyone in the room seems a little more distant than they should. “I don’t want them to get smoky,” he explains, because honestly. He just said that.
“... so is nudity the endgame plan, here?” asks David, looking intrigued, and oh sweet god Kurt honestly hadn’t thought of that. He feels his face flush bright red, heart pounding a little fast in his chest. The whole is a bit off-kilter around him, and his limbs feel light.
“I -” Kurt starts, because words are a little more complicated to speak than he’s used to right now, but Blaine cuts in smoothly.
“Did you bring pyjamas?” asks Blaine, eyes shining with soft amusement, but it isn’t cruel. Kurt isn’t being made fun of. Kurt nods, and Blaine inhales and licks his lips. “Why don’t you just - change into those? And then your clothes will remain pristine and smoke-free.”
“Okay,” Kurt nods, and moves to stand up before he remembers something important. He hesitates, before poking Blaine on the shoulder. Blaine blinks. “I don’t know where the bathroom is,” Kurt admits quietly, and Blaine giggles.
“I’ll take you,” says Blaine, pushing himself up into a standing position and extending a hand for Kurt to take. Ever the gentleman, even with his eyes red and the smell of smoke at his lips. “Sometimes I think I know Wes’s house better than my own, I’ve spent so much time here since I transferred.”
Kurt slides his hand into Blaine’s, which - god, does touching Blaine always feel this way? It’s as though there are nerves in his hand Kurt never even knew were there: every inch of skin on skin is so perceptible, as is the way Blaine’s fingers squeeze and move around his own. It’s all more in a way he doesn’t think he could ever explain with words. Blaine pulls him unsteadily to his feet, stabilizes him with his other hand, and oh. The world spins a little bit at the movement, and his head feels a bit rushy.
“Come on,” says Blaine, leading him out by the hand, and Kurt isn’t anywhere near intoxicated enough to miss the raised eyebrow that Jessica gives them as they leave. Blaine opens the door with his free hand, guides them out -
-and it’s like stepping out of a sauna, my god.
“It’s... really smoky in there,” says Kurt pointlessly as they step into the much clearer air of the hallway. It’s crisp and almost cold in the hall, fresh and easy to breathe in. “I didn’t even really notice.”
“Mmm,” agrees Blaine happily, and walk to the entrance to grab Kurt’s satchel. And they’re still holding hands, which, yeah, Kurt isn’t opposed to at all. It feels amazing, like Blaine’s the only thing he’s connected to in the world even as his feet are solid on the hardwood floor. Is this something friends do? Maybe it’s just something Blaines do. He had taken Kurt’s hand and led them down a fancy hallway the first time they met, too, after all.
“Parallels,” says Kurt contentedly, and Blaine hums in agreement even though Kurt is fairly sure he didn’t actually make any sense. The dark seems to wrap around them in a more tangible way than Kurt is used to, tangling in their limbs.
“I think I’m a little bit high,” admits Kurt after a moment, as their footsteps thrum-thrum-thrum on the hall runner carpet. “Not much, but. A little bit. I think. It’s hard to tell.”
Blaine laughs. “I think I’m a little bit high, too,” he says, giving Kurt’s hand a squeeze, and oh god Kurt must be at least a little gone, because there is no way a simple clasp of hands can possibly be so amazingly sexy in real life. He’s been saying for years that the touch of a fingertips is as sexy as it gets, yes, but he’d meant more along the lines of romantic and not actually, problematically sexy.
When they arrive at what Kurt can only assume is the main bathroom, Blaine ushers him inside with his curls falling loose around his ears and that too-big grin still fixed firmly on his face. Kurt flicks on the light, closes the door to shut Blaine out - and the nearly-sterile brightness of it all is such a shock after the dim of the hall.
The mirror behind the elaborate taps is large and luxurious: no one here would ever have to invest in a dresser mirror just to be able to see their own face properly in the morning. Kurt catches sight of his reflection, and stares.
The only word that comes to mind is debauched. His usually china-doll pale skin is flushed and heated in the soft rounds of his cheeks, and there are several strands of hair escaping from his hairstyle. Trailing along the side of his cheek, his face, each one like a mark of indulgence. His eyes are brighter than usual, more green than blue in this light - and, god, his eyes are just as squinty and bloodshot as Blaine’s are. Whenever he tilts his head, he can feel and almost see the drag of it moving in the air. There’s a wide, closed-lipped smile pulled across his face. His chest is heaving just a little bit.
You’re doing something illegal, a voice says inside his head. Something that most of your friends at McKinley probably haven’t done. Something that most of the people in your life probably haven’t done.
Kurt tips his head forward, bits down on his lip - and laughs, clear and high, as the two Kurts staring back at one another share in the joke.
--
When Kurt finally emerges - he’d had to actually use the bathroom, he’d realized while he was inside, and the buttons on his shirt really were more complicated than is strictly fair - he finds Blaine waiting for him. Leaned up against the wall with his eyes closed, humming something Kurt vaguely recognizes as radio music and swaying slightly back and forth. Blaine turns a few seconds late at the sound of the door opening, eyeing him up and down.
For the first time, Kurt realizes that wearing his pyjamas does actually mean that people are going to see him in his pyjamas. Oh, damn it.
“Super cute,” says Blaine quietly, tugging at the lapel of the blue satin shirt. Kurt feels more heat rise in his face.
“Thank you,” he says quickly. “Armani. Second-hand. My dad and I took a weekend trip to Cleveland last year, and I found them in the bargain bin at a thrift store.”
Which... yeah, Kurt does actually try tremendously hard not to let on where and how he gets the clothes he wears - especially around his friends from Dalton - so the drugs must be affecting his mental filter as well. Because for all that they’re amazing people, for the most part the Warblers simply do not understand. They can’t comprehend the experience of working at your dad’s business for forty hours a week to save up enough money to buy a few new, genuine, precious pieces of designer clothing - only to have them get soaked in cherry slushie and forever ruined three days into the school year.
But Blaine doesn’t seem to be laughing at him. “Of course you did,” he says, eyes shining, and he takes Kurt’s hand again and leads them back to the living room.
By the time they arrive back, the bong is sitting off to the side and everyone seems to be sitting or draped across the ground or couches in various states of awake or staring or chatting or drowsing. There’s music playing on the expensive sound system; something soft and lilting and soothing, with heavy instrumentals and a strong baseline.
For a second, Kurt feels disappointed. He’d actually really, really been enjoying the evening, and he almost feels upset that they either missed the last round or everyone else decided they’d had enough. Because Kurt isn’t sure, actually, that he’s had enough. He could probably have done more, if they’d let him.
“C’mon,” Blaine says, tugging him into the middle of the circle where there’s a large space left open. Both of them lie down on the plush carpet, and very suddenly Kurt isn’t upset at all anymore. He’s just... comfortable. The muscles in his body are all unwound and loose, and he’s already in his pyjamas so he’s fairly certain that he’s more comfortable than everyone else in the room combined. Kurt can feel Blaine next to him, pressed a little bit up against his side for lack of room, and the smell of Blaine is all around him.
It’s nice, and warm, and human like this. Kurt presses his face into Blaine’s shoulder, inhaling deeply to take in the smell, and Blaine sighs happily beside him.
“Do they realize that they’re...?” someone’s voice asks from above them, but they’re quickly silenced by what sounds like about six people hissing shhhhhh. Kurt can’t tell exactly who, though, or why, because his eyes are closed as the world floats softly around him. He reaches up to run a hand through Blaine’s hair, because he wants to and because it seems like a good idea, and Blaine makes a pleased little noise and leans into the touch. The curls are soft and not too thick with product, and Kurt’s hand slides easily through them and along Blaine’s scalp, massaging in soft patterns. His hands are still hypersensitive, and it still feels a little bit like he can feel every individual hair on Blaine’s head.
The world drifts, and Kurt’s limbs feel happily light and heavy at the same time, and his whole world fills with the smell of Blaine as they lie together on the soft carpet. It is possibly the most at ease he’s felt in years.
He must drift to sleep, because at some point later they’re being shaken awake and tugged into standing positions. There are more lights off, now, and kind hands guide them into what Kurt can only assume is one of the house’s guest rooms. Kurt gets tucked into the bed right away, which is lovely and soft if cooler than the floor. He can hear at least two people talking quietly and the rustle of fabric off in the room somewhere. Wes, he thinks vaguely, drifting in and out. And Blaine.
When Blaine is guided into the bed as well - and it is Blaine, Kurt could tell on any kinds of drugs with his eyes shut and a gun pointed at his head - Kurt notices that he’s now wearing a soft shirt and flannel-y pants. The light goes off, and Wes’s voice says “goodnight, guys,” and Kurt can hear the soft click of a door closing right before he drifts off into gentle, foggy sleep with Blaine’s face tucked peacefully into the hollow of his neck.
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