Fic: "What's Mine (Isn't Yours)" -- Part Two. Kurt/Blaine, unrequited Kurt/Karofsky
Click here to go back to the first half.
For the next few days, Karofsky’s words are practically all Blaine can think about.
As much as he tries to avoid looking at it, his brain just keeps dragging it right back. The kiss that in the locker room from all those months ago, the one that Kurt only ever told him about in the most simplistic terms possible: it buzzes and burns beneath his eyelids no matter how much he tries to push it down. Against his own will, Blaine finds himself rolling it over and over in his mind even as the image makes him recoil and his lip curl and his whole body clench up in disgust. He tries to stop himself from filling in the details, but he just can’t. Can’t stop from trying to decide if Karofsky grabbed hold of Kurt’s shirt to tug him in, or his face, or shoved him up against the lockers. Can’t stop imagining how scared Kurt must have been, how shocked and terrified with no idea what to do as something important was taken away from him.
He can’t get over the fact that Karofsky- Karofsky, who harassed Kurt until he had to change schools, who is lusting over his boyfriend and wants to take him away - kissed Kurt before Blaine did. Karofsky knows first-hand what Kurt tastes like, what he feels like pressed up close. He probably imagines it sometimes, Blaine realizes in horror after a little while. Trails his fingers over the memory like it’s something precious instead of something disgusting, and awful, and sick. The very idea makes a lump rise up in his throat.
Intellectually, Blaine is aware that he is obsessing over something ridiculous, something stupid. That he’s being an idiot for letting the comment have exactly the effect Karofsky wanted it to. He wills himself to stop, forces himself to stop agonizing over it. Tries to focus on homework instead, or the date he and Kurt are on, or the number the New Directions are working on for Sectionals.
But he just can’t. As soon as he drags his mind away, the very next moment the image will slither back along the edges of his mind. Tugging, nudging, forcing him to think about it as he grows increasingly distant and twitchy and has a harder time focusing on anything else.
It doesn’t exactly help that Karofsky is everywhere, all at once, all the time. He is wedging himself into Kurt’s life slowly, sliding in and making a place for himself as Blaine watches helplessly on. Sitting with Kurt at lunch when he can, adding him as a friend on Facebook and getting accepted as one.
One day, Santana drags Karofsky to glee practice on what happens to be an individual performance day. For the entirety of Kurt’s rendition of “Cry Me a River”, Karofsky sits back in his chair and stares at Kurt’s face. Not even his body, just - looking greedily at every fractional movement and twist of expression in Kurt’s face as though he’s trying to memorize it.
Somehow, the way Karofsky’s eyes linger over the curve of Kurt’s lips makes Blaine feel even sicker than if he’d spent the whole time ogling his body.
One night when they’re watching a movie together at the Hudson-Hummel household, Kurt turns to him and quietly asks what’s been wrong lately and he just can’t say. Can’t admit that oh, sorry sweetheart, I can’t stop thinking about that time you got kissed against your will and how much I hate the fucking bastard who did it because he’s a friend of yours now and he really wants to shake me up so he can get in your pants.
So instead, Blaine just smiles and tells him that he’s having a bit of a hard time adjusting to McKinley, which is completely true, and that he’s sure he’ll figure it out soon. And when Kurt smiles back, Blaine leans in and kisses his boyfriend - his boyfriend - softly on the lips. Gentle and sweet and loving and kind and everything Karofsky’s kiss wasn’t, he knows it wasn’t, until Kurt is groaning into the kiss and arching up into him and it’s so good he’s actually able to think straight for once.
Time passes. Days keep coming.
Blaine tries not to let the thoughts bother him.
Sometimes, it even works.
--
To Blaine’s distaste, Karofsky shares their English class. It isn’t as bad as it could be: the seating is assigned, which is kind of unfortunate because it means he and Kurt can’t sit together. However, it’s also a very positive thing in that Karofsky is stuck at his desk two seats behind and one seat over from Kurt, which makes for one fewer opportunity for the sliding-insidious creep creep creep of friendship he’s been attempting to forge.
They’re in the middle of an editing exercise, with their poetry analysis paragraphs having been mixed around and handed out for peer revisions as their teacher marks midterms, when Blaine happens to glance up with his pen cap stuck in his mouth mid-critique. The seating plan has placed him near the back of the room but in the middle, and when he looks up the very first thing his eyes land on is Karofsky, two desks away, staring at Kurt’s neck.
The fact that he is staring at all is nothing particularly newsworthy at this point: watching Karofsky steal covert peeks at his boyfriend has been a recurring theme ever since Blaine’s transfer.
More than that, it’s the way Karofsky’s staring that is the problem. Eyes raking over the pale length of skin of Kurt’s neck, taut and leading down into the hint of shoulder and collar bone exposed by the drape of his shirt. Karofsky simply sits and looks, not even bothering with the paragraph he’s supposed to be editing. Watching as Kurt’s chest gently rises and falls in an easy rested heart rate, his eyes trailing along the slight point of Kurt’s ear and the line of his jaw.
Blaine watches as Karofsky’s gaze slides down to caress over the shape of Kurt’s arms beneath his shirt, the thinness of Kurt’s wrists and the sharpness with which he holds his own red pen with long-fingered hands and lingering over the twist of his fingers.
Karofsky is fixating and committing to memory and thinking about Kurt, about Kurt’s body as the larger boy fidgets and changes sitting positions awkwardly in his chair, and all at once it hits Blaine properly for the first time that Karofsky thinks about Kurt. More than just going over the one kiss that existed in reality, Karofsky thinks about Kurt in private. Conjuring up images of Kurt’s body and Kurt’s face and contorting them into something wanton and obscene within the confines of his own mind.
The pen falls out of Blaine’s hand and tumbles onto the table, but its fall is cushioned by his notebook and makes no sound. Blaine’s mouth is hanging open and his whole body is vibrating with disgust, because it feels like such a violation. It feels as though part of Kurt is being ruined every time Karofsky looks at him; being made less innocent and the things he and Blaine do together less special as they’re distorted and changed in fantasy. The fact that Kurt’s image, his sense of self, gets twisted and contorted by Karofsky’s greedy mind; to be used for Karofsky’s own sick gratification... it’s sick. Karofsky takes the idea of Kurt - who Kurt is - and puts it on display in his head, moving the image around like a puppet, making him do things in fantasy that Kurt would never do in real life.
Jesus, what does he think about? Blaine’s stomach twists dully as he stares ahead at the front of the classroom with unseeing eyes. Does he think about touching him, or kissing him, or bringing him off, or fucking him -
“May I be excused?” Blaine hears himself asking, hand shooting straight up into the air. Kurt turns around in his desk to look at him with his eyebrows slightly raised, and it’s all Blaine can do to keep his breathing even. Their teacher nods absently, waving a hand in the air, and Blaine is gone.
As soon as he’s out in the hallway, Blaine flumps bonelessly against the wall. Anger and frustration and something else, something dark and awful and hot and unpleasant is twisting in his stomach. He closes his eyes to block out the empty hallway and breathes, just breathes, and before he knows what he’s doing he’s pulling out his smartphone and banging out a text. His fingers are shaking so badly he has to go back and re-type most of it.
To: Kurt Hummel
October 13th, 2011, 2:14pm
If you can get out of class, meet me at the men’s bathroom down the hall? - Blaine
Because a need, a frantic desperation is gripping at Blaine’s insides and making his hands move and he hits the ‘send’ button before he can think too much about what he’s planning, charging off down the hallway to the bathroom.
This is a bad idea, a terrible idea. There’s a voice speaking at the back of Blaine’s head as he walks saying stop it, what are you doing, you’re being a caveman about this, if Kurt knew - but he shuts it up because Blaine needs this. Needs to prove this to himself, to be able to have it.
Needs to prove this to Karofsky.
One shove to the bathroom door, and Blaine is inside the thankfully empty room. The counter is wet from water and there are wadded up clumps of brown paper towel thrown around the garbage bin. It smells entirely like a men’s restroom. It isn’t the perfect place or time and god, it’s certainly not the perfect thing to want to do, but he needs this.
Bouncing on his feet and trying to keep himself calm, Blaine waits. He would be more concerned about Kurt not checking his text messages in class, but Blaine knows for a fact that his phone is on vibrate in his jeans and that the entire Glee club have managed to become the school champions for finding a way to check their messages at any time, in any place.
And sure enough, less than two minutes later, the door to the bathroom pushes open and Kurt steps inside.
He looks confused, and concerned, and so fucking gorgeous it makes Blaine’s heart hurt. For the parts of Kurt that are private, that are just theirs to share and have and experience together that Karofsky deserves no part in. Karofsky doesn’t deserve to think about Kurt - beautiful Kurt, funny Kurt, Blaine’s Kurt - without having to think about him, too.
“Blaine?” asks Kurt, a worried crinkle appearing over his nose. The blue of his eyes is dark with concern. “Are you -?”
But Kurt doesn’t get the chance to finish. Instead, Blaine reaches forward and grips Kurt’s hand - like he did on the stairs at Dalton, or after burying Pavarotti, and a thousand times since then - and begins to tug him into one of the stalls.
“Please,” says Blaine, and the desperation makes his voice crack. He’s trying to be gentle, but Kurt still looks completely at a loss. “Please, I need you right now, just - please -”
“Blaine,” says Kurt faintly, but he lets himself get pulled inside without resisting at all. Lets Blaine tug him into the handicapped stall and lock the door behind them without once trying to pull away, or slow them down. Just allows Blaine to get them alone together, and that trust makes Blaine want to let out a heaved breath of relief. “Why -?”
The rest of the words are cut off when Blaine reaches up, gently uses both hands to cradle Kurt’s face, and leans in to claim Kurt’s lips in a heated kiss. Kurt makes a small noise in the back of his throat, the vibrations of the sound tingling over Blaine’s lips, but he relaxes into the touch right away. Reaches up to wrap his arms around Blaine’s shoulders, to pull him in closer, and Blaine groans and opens Kurt’s mouth with his own.
Kurt’s fingers clench and unclench spasmodically in the muscles of Blaine’s shoulders as their mouths slide together, hot and rushed and wet. Edging them back gently so that Kurt’s back is pressed up against the stall door, Blaine pushes his tongue between Kurt’s willing lips to taste the inside of his mouth. To map every contour and slide of their tongues, to know Kurt’s mouth intimately in a way that no one else ever has. In a way that no one else ever will.
They break apart fairly quickly; Blaine presses a kiss to the corner of Kurt’s mouth, his cheek, beneath his ear. Trailing his lips down to the soft juncture of Kurt’s throat, his head tilted back to allow Blaine better access.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Kurt whispers frantically, stifling a groan as Blaine runs his teeth over the sensitive skin - before sealing his lips over it and beginning to suck. “Shit, shit, shit, that - I can’t - Blaine -”
Blaine hums comforting noises as he sucks at the patch of skin, stroking a hand along Kurt’s arm when he can’t hold in the little breathy noises of overwhelmed pleasure as he works at the skin. Running his teeth over it every-so-often and sucking down. Claiming Kurt in an almost animal way, so crass and rough, feeling the fluttering of Kurt’s pulse beneath his lips. Making Kurt his, making him feel it.
The surrender of it is so much better than anything else could possibly be; with no warning at all and no understanding of why, Kurt is letting him do this. Letting himself be pushed up a bathroom stall door and taken in the middle of the day without even demanding an explanation.
I love you, thinks Blaine frantically, finally releasing the patch of skin when he deems he’s spent long enough there. I love you, I love you, I love you so much.
Pulling away, Blaine leans up to press a last quick kiss to Kurt’s already-damp lips. Kurt is shaking in his arms, clinging to Blaine’s back and breathing hard, slumped against the door in order to stay on his feet. His cheeks and ears are flushed, Blaine realizes happily. Pupils dilated and hair slightly askew, the red mark stands out sharply against the pale of his neck.
“What was that about?” Kurt asks, sounding overwhelmed - but not unhappy. Just... surprised, and pleased, and slightly preening. “Anyone could have come in.”
“They didn’t,” says Blaine quickly, shaking his head and tugging Kurt into a hug. Tucking his face into the crook of Kurt’s shoulder like a child with a stuffed toy, squeezing Kurt’s stomach and blinking hard against the heat of his skin. Kurt trails his hands over Blaine’s back comfortingly, vaguely. “I love you,” Blaine says pointlessly, squeezing Kurt around the middle again. “Thank you.”
“I love you, too,” says Kurt, and his tone of voice makes very clear the implicit you weirdo that should follow. He pats Blaine on the back one last time and pulls back, pressing a quick kiss to Blaine’s nose. “Get back to class, and I’ll follow in a minute, all right? We’ll look suspicious enough as it is.”
“Okay,” agrees Blaine quickly, and Kurt steps away from the door of the stall in order to let Blaine leave. “I love you,” he says again, and Kurt rolls his eyes.
“Go,” Kurt instructs sharply, fingers trailing over the red mark on his own neck. Something hot and sharp and lovely spikes in Blaine’s chest. He smiles, nodding, and heads to leave.
Half way back to the classroom, he receives a text.
From: Kurt Hummel
October 13th, 2011, 2:20pm
I can’t believe we just did that in a bathroom, you loser. Disgusting. I do have standards, you know. - Kurt
Laughing quietly to himself, Blaine tucks the phone into his pocket - and heads back into the classroom and back to his desk. It’s less than a minute before Kurt comes back in as well, head held high and back ramrod straight, to fold himself back into his desk. Their teacher hardly notices, barely inclining his head in acknowledgement when they walk through the door.
But Karofsky’s eyes are fixed on Kurt as soon as he walks inside. They rake up and down Kurt’s body as Kurt quickly picks up his pen and begins editing again, shaking his head gracefully. Trailing down Kurt’s face, to his arms - and back up to his neck again.
Karofsky’s eyes widen.
It doesn’t take too long. The red blotch on the side of Kurt’s neck begins to fade after only a few minutes, melding back into the pale perfection of the skin of his neck. And by the end of the class, there it is. The very beginnings of a small, perfect bruise rising beneath the skin below his jawline. Such a gorgeous little mark; standing out sharp and beautiful against the paleness of Kurt’s skin.
Kurt always hides any marks Blaine happens to leave on him with cover-up and powder. It’s never bothered Blaine before now, but today...
When Karofsky’s eyes fall upon the bruise, he blanches. His large body tenses in his seat, and a pained look comes into his eyes. He shudders, eyes falling back down onto his paper and picking up his editing pen with shaking hands. He doesn’t raise his eyes from the paper for the rest of the class.
Every time Kurt absently trails his fingertips over the small mark not even realizing it’s there, the motion sends sparks of vindication up and down Blaine’s spine.
--
It all comes to a head a few days later, when glee rehearsal runs late due to a combination of Mr. Schuester attempting to drill ‘appropriate behavioural standards’ for Sectionals into their heads and Rachel Berry’s insistence that they run through the choreography for “You Can’t Stop the Beat” again.
By the time they’re all finally allowed to leave, Blaine’s feet are aching and even his threshold for discussing the importance of public perception has been well and truly exceeded. He and Kurt were supposed to be going out for dinner after practice, but at this point it’s looking more like crackers and cream cheese at the Hudson-Hummel household is all they’ll have time for before Blaine has to head home. It’s more than a little bit irksome, and Blaine nearly lets out an actual sigh of relief when Mr. Schue finally dismisses them.
Everyone floods out in a rush, grabbing their bags and shouting quick goodbyes as they attempt to speed out of the room as quickly as possible. Blaine and Kurt are just about to push their way out of the choir room doors when Kurt suddenly halts in place, looking irritated.
“Damn it,” mutters Kurt, letting out a little huff of breath. “I meant to talk to Mr. Schuester about my solo for Sectionals, but Rachel Berry’s incredible ability to continuously speak without pausing to draw breath managed to distract me.” He reaches up and runs his hand down Blaine’s upper arm apologetically. “Give me five minutes?”
“Of course,” says Blaine at once, and Kurt beams before giving him a quick peck on the lips. Within the confines of the practice room is one of the fewer places in the school they feel safe being openly affections.
“I’ll be right back,” adds Kurt reassuringly, before turning around to march toward their teacher with Mr Schue, if I may? already tumbling from his lips. Blaine smiles even as his stomach growls pitifully. He decides it might be nicer to wait outside in the hallway: at this point, he’s spent enough time in this particular room today for it to feel as though the walls are closing in around him. Blaine pushes the door open, steps into the hallway - and freezes.
Dave Karofsky is there, in front of him, right now. Leaning against the wall just across from the choir room door, slumped against it in a casual way that might fool someone who wasn’t looking closely. But Blaine can see the careful tension in his muscles, the way his whole body is taut and ready as he waits. He glances up as Blaine walks out, eyes lighting up for a quick moment in friendliness - before he realizes that Kurt isn’t with him. Karofsky’s face falls, quickly twisting into a frustrated grimace.
“Ugh, seriously?” says Karofsky scornfully, voice low in disappointment. He rolls his eyes, shrugging broad shoulders as he turns to walk back down the hallway.
“Hey!” Blaine calls out harshly, trying not to shout for fear of alerting Kurt and Mr. Schuester inside the practice room. Disbelieving disgust is rushing through Blaine’s veins, hard and fast and sudden, and it scares him how quickly this boy can make him go from okay to furious. He takes a step forward. “What are you doing, stalking him now?”
Karofsky pauses mid-step, turning around slowly as though it pains him to do so. He gives Blaine a long look, trailing his eyes down over his small frame and back up again. When he meets Blaine’s gaze, there’s a contemptuous twist to his lips. “Whatever, Anderson. I don’t want to talk to you.”
Instead of letting him walk away, Blaine takes another step forward. The voice of reason at the back of his head is reeling. What are you doing? it asks furiously. He hates you and he’s bigger than you. He’s going to beat you to a pulp and land you in the hospital, and it’ll be your own stupid fault again.
“What if I want to talk to you?” Blaine returns quickly, not backing down. Not being a coward, not this time. Intellectually, Blaine is aware that he should want to run away. To back down, raise his hands in the air. But instead of flight, it is fight that is thrumming through his whole body. He clenches his fists.
Karofsky raises an eyebrow.
“What are you gonna do, sing me to death?” Karofsky gives Blaine another look as though he isn’t worth his time of day.
“You’ve been trailing after him for weeks,” spits Blaine, straightening himself up as tall as possible. He’s been silent for too long about this; relegating it to covert looks and glares and tactics behind Kurt’s back, and Blaine is so ready to confront Karofsky out loud. To call him out, make it real. “It’s creepy, you know that? You’re creepy. So just... stay away from him. Whatever sick game you have in mind, just back the fuck off.”
A rough, barking laugh dredges itself up from Karofsky’s throat. “Me? I’m creepy?” The other boy takes a step closer, eyes narrowed and blazing. “God, you’re so fucking smarmy, I have no idea how he puts up with you.” Karofsky cocks his head. “I’m not the one who marked him up like a fucking animal. Possessive much, Anderson?”
“Only because you’re stalking my boyfriend!” Blaine hisses out, trying to suppress the flicker of guilt at the mention of the hickey. Kurt had been irritated when he discovered it later in the day; had rolled his eyes and asked to borrow one of Quinn’s scarves to cover it up, and Blaine had felt like a complete douche for knowingly making it happen.
Blaine shakes his head to dispel the guilt. “You know, I honestly cannot figure you out. You harassed him, assaulted him, drove him out of this school - and now you want to be his friend? Want to be with him?” Blaine shakes his head. “I cannot figure out your motivations. Do you think Kurt is just going to - to drop everything and forgive you for all of it and go running into your arms? Because if you do, Karofsky, you’re more of an idiot than I thought you -”
“Don’t say that.” The words are quiet, barely a mutter. But Karofsky looks furious, jaw stiff with tension and his hands clenched into fists. “Don’t you fucking say that, you don’t know anything -”
Blaine’s mouth falls open, making a small noise of disbelief. “... oh my god,” he says softly, letting out an ugly little laugh. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? You... you actually think that after everything you did, Kurt would ever want to be with you. You think that -”
“He forgave Puckerman,” rushes Karofsky, eyes flashing. “He forgave Hudson enough to fucking be his brother now or whatever -”
“That’s not the same and you know it. You tormented him, Karofsky. You made him leave.” Blaine is aware that Kurt has been gone for a long time now, and he can only hope he’ll be a little bit longer because he cannot back down from this. Blaine inches forward, and they’re close to one another now. Edging at the boundaries of one another’s personal space. He looks Karofsky right in the eye, refusing to blink. Refusing to back down. “If you even think for a second,” Blaine whispers furiously, “that Kurt would ever - ever - let himself be your quick fuck? Then you are more deranged than even I ever thought you were.”
“Fucking shut up,” growls Dave, leaning in close and raising his clenched fist in the air beside them. “Fucking shut up, you don’t know anything, I love him.”
The silence that follows this statement hangs in the hallway like a physical presence. Karofsky’s words shiver off of the walls, the floor, along Blaine’s skin. He’s standing there in front of him, rough face twisted up in anger, and everything seems to slow down.
It feels as though Blaine has been hit over the head with a two-by-four. Delayed shock hits him in the gut like a physical blow, and when opens his mouth to speak only a choked noise comes out. Time seems to jolt back to its normal pace. Karofsky leans in close, heated and furious, words tripping over themselves in their rush to be spoken.
“You’re such a little bastard,” he growls. “I can’t stand you. Don’t you dare think you know Kurt better than I do just because he lets you fuck him, Anderson, I’ve known him for years. I know his type, and it sure as hell ain’t you.”
Words coming back to him out of the daze of horrified shock, Blaine shakes his head. “You don’t love him,” he says quickly, the denial sure on his tongue. “You don’t know how. You treated him like shit, and now -”
“Don’t you dare tell me what I feel,” rushes Karofsky, narrowing his eyes. There is a manic look coming over his face; words are coming, pouring out of his mouth hard and quick and low with fury. “I had a little epiphany, okay? Realized what I felt, why I was fucking him around. I know he’d never want to be with who I was before.” He cocks his head to the other side. A grin is creeping over the other boy’s face, unsettling and certain. “But I’ve changed. We’re friends now. So you’d just better watch your back.”
“What are you -?”
“When you fuck up,” says Karofsky slowly, enunciating every word. His eyes don’t move from Blaine’s for a single instant. “And I know you will - when you put your foot in your mouth too bad to recover, or get bored of him, or when Kurt decides he wants a real man? I’m gonna be there. His shoulder to cry on. When you fuck up, Anderson, he’s mine. And I won’t ever let him go.” Karofsky leans in even closer, the heat of his breath ghosting over Blaine’s face as he hisses: “So watch your fucking back.”
The next few seconds exist in a vacuum. There is a dull buzzing in Blaine’s ears as the two of them stand there in the hallway, breathing hard and leaning into one another’s space. Karofsky’s face is a picture of threatening rage, and with no warning at all Blaine suddenly feels removed from the whole situation. Detached.
What on earth am I doing?
Reeling, Blaine blinks - and some of the emotion that has been flooding through his body for the past month seems to ebb away. The thrumming anger, the seething possessiveness; at once, it all seems to dissipate inside of him. The one thought pulsing through his mind is to dully wonder at how quickly this all got out of hand, how ugly it all is - and how ugly he’s been acting.
He lied to Kurt about this; hid things from him, didn’t tell him the whole story. Blaine has been intentionally hiding part of his life and his emotions from his boyfriend, what is wrong with him?
You wanted to go to public school to face these kinds of people. Instead, you’re just hiding around and being dishonest. Is that really what you came here to prove?
“I’m so done with you,” Blaine hears himself saying, taking a firm step back.
The certainty in his voice makes Karofsky falter. “What?” the other boy asks. He looks confused. “Did you hear me, Anderson? You’d better watch -”
“I heard you, I just don’t care.” Blaine shakes his head, feeling disgust well up hard and strong in his stomach. “You’re pathetic, you know that? You talk about Kurt as though he’s something you can steal.” Blaine lets out a tiny noise of distaste. “He’s so much more than that, Karofsky. He’s so much more than me, or you, or both of us. And he doesn’t deserve to be... objectified like this.”
There is a long pause. Karofsky opens his mouth as if to speak, but no words manage to escape. His eyes look slightly frantic. Shrugging, Blaine turns around - and begins to walk back to the glee club door a few paces away to wait for Kurt.
“Wait, where are you going?” Karofsky finally manages to choke out, and Blaine can hear the waver in his voice. He sounds like a small child, bewildered that no one wants to listen to his tantrum. “I’m not done talking to you.”
“Well, I’m done with you.” Blaine leans back against the wall across from the glee club entrance, turning to look at Karofsky standing alone in the middle of the hallway. Despite his broadness and bulk, in this moment he looks inexplicably tiny amid the wideness of the world around him.
“Like you’re any better than I am,” Karofsky finally manages, seeming to dredge up the words in an attempt to regroup. “You’re defensive as fuck, and you don’t deserve him.”
Blaine just shakes his head. The words are sliding off him now, like water off a duck’s back. None of their hatred and anger and insecurity is infecting him anymore. It is as though he has flipped a switch within his mind, and everything that has left Blaine an obsessive wreck in the past month... they’re words. They’re just words. And they can’t hurt him if he doesn’t let them.
“I have no idea why I decided to let you get to me, I really don’t,” says Blaine simply, not needing to push away or shove down any anger at the words. They’re meaningless, now. The last, desperate efforts of someone who has no chance at getting what they want. “Because what you said, about Kurt and I breaking up? It just isn’t going to happen.” There is no hesitation when Blaine speaks, no insecurity. He’s finished with that, now. Over. “I love him, and he loves me, and that means something. And you?” Blaine shrugs. “You’re just too alone to let that go.”
At that very moment, there is movement behind the glass portholes in the swinging glee club doors. A figure, pushing out - and Kurt is standing there. Brown book bag slung over one shoulder and looking radiant when he smiles; the talk with Mr. Schuester must have gone well.
“We’re using the version with the fast tempo!” says Kurt excitedly, practically vibrating where he stands. “I told him it would make the most sense in terms of pacing and energy, and he...” Pausing, Kurt trails off as he notices Karofsky standing slightly down the hallway.
There is an air of devastation around the larger boy; his shoulders are hunched, and he is staring down disbelievingly at the ground. Without even glancing up, or trying to catch a glimpse of Kurt, Karofsky turns on his heel - and walks quickly away from the two of them. The sound of his footsteps pounding on the linoleum reverberates off the walls. Blaine thinks he might hear a choked-off noise as Karofsky rounds the corner, but he can’t be sure. And he simply cannot bring himself to care. Karofsky isn’t worth his time, isn’t worth his worry. Isn’t worth his pity.
Blaine knows that Kurt is a better person than he is. Sometimes it is just more obvious than others.
When Karofsky is completely out of sight, Kurt turns back to look at him. There is a strange mix of emotions amid the beauty of his face. Confusion, and wariness, and the slightest hint of suspicion.
“What’s going on?” Kurt asks. His voice is quiet and even, but brooks absolutely no misdirection. And Blaine is happy to hear it, because here? Here is the person he should have been talking to about this all along. Everything Karofsky has been doing to make Blaine squirm and flinch and rage inside his mind... he should have told Kurt right from the start, and Blaine has no idea in retrospect why he didn’t.
But he’s ready to make it up to him now.
“We’ll talk about it on the way home?” asks Blaine, and Kurt nods. Pushing off the wall, Blaine takes a few steps forward - and Kurt’s soft, strong hand slips unthinkingly into his own. The trust embedded within that gesture makes Blaine’s heart sing, and he gives Kurt’s hand a long squeeze.
They begin to walk toward the doors to outside, hands clasped and dangling between them. The madness of his first month at McKinley is gone as though it had never existed - removed, like a tumour that was growing inside and sapping him dry being cut away - and everything is so much sharper. The warmth of Kurt’s palm against his own, the sound of their shoes against the linoleum floors.
They can still do this; can still stand side-by-side and be strong against the world in this last year of childhood together. The haze of Karofsky is lifted from in front of Blaine’s eyes, now. He made a mistake, but they can still get through this together.
“I have to tell you something about Karofsky and me,” Blaine begins as they push open the doors to outside and walk out into the cool air. Because Kurt deserves his honesty, his trust, just as much as he deserves Kurt’s. Because they need to be equals in this relationship, not hiding secrets, and Blaine has been holding something of himself back that he needs to give.
And because with the softness of Kurt’s hand cradled in his own, Blaine knows that he never intends to let go, either. But he doesn’t have to resort to underhanded tactics and sickening faking to have forever with Kurt. He can keep Kurt with him with honesty, and communication, and by loving him so much it fills up everything they are.
They walk hand-in-hand back to the car because it’s late and dark and as safe as they can hope for. Walking through the darkness with the solidity of Kurt’s hand in his grounding him, Blaine opens his mouth and begins to speak.
The End