The Worst Part
Title: The Worst Part
Rating: PG
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine
Spoilers: Through 4.04.
Word Count: 911
Summary: The worst part, Blaine mused as he sat in the passenger seat next to the stranger wearing his (ex)boyfriend’s skin, wasn’t the way he still felt like he was ripping his own heart out with his bare hands. It was the cold silence where warmth and laughter had always been.
Author's Note: I sat down yesterday to work on Chapter 40 of His Perfect Partner, and this follow-up fic appeared instead. I have a master glee post here, or feel free to come visit on tumblr. Thanks, as always, for reading.
The worst part, Blaine mused as he sat in the passenger seat next to the stranger wearing his (ex)boyfriend’s skin, wasn’t the way he still felt like he was ripping his own heart out with his bare hands. It was the cold silence where warmth and laughter had always been.
They’d been in the car for twenty minutes, somehow thrown together following the New Directions Thanksgiving reunion dinner. The details of how and why - Blaine’s car in the shop, his ride’s need to go reconnect with her own ex-boyfriend - didn’t matter. What mattered was the quality of the quiet between them, brittle and awkward. Before, the silence had always felt intimate and comfortable. Before, Blaine hadn’t ruined everything with his own unmanageable desires.
He glanced to the left, trying not to betray his curiosity with movement. Kurt was so still, moving only to turn the wheel or flick a turn signal on. His profile was haughty, the kind of icy, ethereal beauty that Blaine knew his clumsy hands would only smudge and mar. All night, Kurt had been smiling that social half-smile of his, the one that meant he was just being polite, that any real emotions were buried too deep to be affected by the people around him. Blaine wanted simultaneously to protect Kurt’s façade and tear into it to find the warm, living, loving boy beneath.
He knew he didn’t have any right to feel hurt. He had done the hurting, the breaking, the destroying. He was the bad guy in this. So when Kurt whipped the car into his empty driveway and then started talking, Blaine just sat there. He listened.
“I’m not over it,” Kurt said, staring out the front windshield. “But I guess I’m still not the sort of person who can let you walk home.”
Blaine noticed the quirk of a smile on Kurt’s face, and remembered the night just over a year before when he’d trudged home while a familiar car rolled along behind him. No, Kurt wasn’t the type of person to leave anyone, at least not when it really counted.
“I’ve been trying to figure out what I wanted to say to you for weeks now. I wasn’t sure I wanted to say anything to you at all, ever again,” Kurt said.
Blaine winced, but knew it was only fair. He didn’t deserve anything. He would take what he could get.
“The worst part is, I think I kind of understand. And for a while, I even felt a lot like it was my fault. No, don’t say anything,” Kurt said when Blaine opened his mouth, wanting to wash Kurt’s misplaced guilt away. “I need to get this out. I think you owe me that.”
Blaine nodded and sat back, folding his hands in his lap.
“We’re bad at talking. We may be even worse at listening. I should have understood what was going on for you, how lonely you felt. And I should have talked to you instead of laughing at those stupid flirty texts from that guy last spring. But you should have talked to me, too. You should have told me what you were afraid of instead of sending me off to New York with just a smile. And you should never have broken my trust - have broken my heart - like that.”
Kurt was crying quietly now, tears rolling slowly down his cheeks. He brushed the tears away with the back of his hand, shaking his head in that way he did when he though he was being ridiculously emotional. If Blaine could speak, he would have told Kurt that none of his feelings were ridiculous. If anything, he was being too considerate, too contained. Blaine wanted to tell Kurt to rage at him, to throw things and yell and let it all out in a way neither of them had ever learned to do. But instead he stayed quiet, as requested, twisting his hands together instead of reaching out.
“I can’t decide if it makes it better or worse that you broke your own heart at the same time,” Kurt said, sniffling a little. He finally turned to look at Blaine. “I don’t care what anyone says - what you say - this is supposed to be forever. You’re not allowed to screw it up like this.”
“Kurt, I…” Blaine began, startled into speech by what Kurt had just said. Once begun, though, he didn’t know where to go next.
“I’m not over it,” Kurt repeated, reaching out to take one of Blaine’s hands between both of his. “I’m not over it, but I think I want to be. Eventually. Do you want that?”
Blaine nodded, the movement so sharp that it caused tears to spill down his face, mirroring Kurt’s. He curled his fingers into Kurt’s, holding on.
Kurt didn’t lean over to kiss him, but Blaine hadn’t been expecting that. Instead, Kurt lapsed back into silence, looking out the window again while Blaine’s hand warmed in his.
Gradually, their tears subsided and their breathing slowed and evened. The tension between them, so pronounced it had been almost visible at the beginning of the night, smoothed out into something more manageable. And the dark side of Blaine’s brain, the part of himself that had been saying for weeks that he was only good for ruining things, finally quieted.
This time, the silence didn’t feel so sinister. It felt instead like the fallow place from which life could begin again.
Rating: PG
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine
Spoilers: Through 4.04.
Word Count: 911
Summary: The worst part, Blaine mused as he sat in the passenger seat next to the stranger wearing his (ex)boyfriend’s skin, wasn’t the way he still felt like he was ripping his own heart out with his bare hands. It was the cold silence where warmth and laughter had always been.
Author's Note: I sat down yesterday to work on Chapter 40 of His Perfect Partner, and this follow-up fic appeared instead. I have a master glee post here, or feel free to come visit on tumblr. Thanks, as always, for reading.
The worst part, Blaine mused as he sat in the passenger seat next to the stranger wearing his (ex)boyfriend’s skin, wasn’t the way he still felt like he was ripping his own heart out with his bare hands. It was the cold silence where warmth and laughter had always been.
They’d been in the car for twenty minutes, somehow thrown together following the New Directions Thanksgiving reunion dinner. The details of how and why - Blaine’s car in the shop, his ride’s need to go reconnect with her own ex-boyfriend - didn’t matter. What mattered was the quality of the quiet between them, brittle and awkward. Before, the silence had always felt intimate and comfortable. Before, Blaine hadn’t ruined everything with his own unmanageable desires.
He glanced to the left, trying not to betray his curiosity with movement. Kurt was so still, moving only to turn the wheel or flick a turn signal on. His profile was haughty, the kind of icy, ethereal beauty that Blaine knew his clumsy hands would only smudge and mar. All night, Kurt had been smiling that social half-smile of his, the one that meant he was just being polite, that any real emotions were buried too deep to be affected by the people around him. Blaine wanted simultaneously to protect Kurt’s façade and tear into it to find the warm, living, loving boy beneath.
He knew he didn’t have any right to feel hurt. He had done the hurting, the breaking, the destroying. He was the bad guy in this. So when Kurt whipped the car into his empty driveway and then started talking, Blaine just sat there. He listened.
“I’m not over it,” Kurt said, staring out the front windshield. “But I guess I’m still not the sort of person who can let you walk home.”
Blaine noticed the quirk of a smile on Kurt’s face, and remembered the night just over a year before when he’d trudged home while a familiar car rolled along behind him. No, Kurt wasn’t the type of person to leave anyone, at least not when it really counted.
“I’ve been trying to figure out what I wanted to say to you for weeks now. I wasn’t sure I wanted to say anything to you at all, ever again,” Kurt said.
Blaine winced, but knew it was only fair. He didn’t deserve anything. He would take what he could get.
“The worst part is, I think I kind of understand. And for a while, I even felt a lot like it was my fault. No, don’t say anything,” Kurt said when Blaine opened his mouth, wanting to wash Kurt’s misplaced guilt away. “I need to get this out. I think you owe me that.”
Blaine nodded and sat back, folding his hands in his lap.
“We’re bad at talking. We may be even worse at listening. I should have understood what was going on for you, how lonely you felt. And I should have talked to you instead of laughing at those stupid flirty texts from that guy last spring. But you should have talked to me, too. You should have told me what you were afraid of instead of sending me off to New York with just a smile. And you should never have broken my trust - have broken my heart - like that.”
Kurt was crying quietly now, tears rolling slowly down his cheeks. He brushed the tears away with the back of his hand, shaking his head in that way he did when he though he was being ridiculously emotional. If Blaine could speak, he would have told Kurt that none of his feelings were ridiculous. If anything, he was being too considerate, too contained. Blaine wanted to tell Kurt to rage at him, to throw things and yell and let it all out in a way neither of them had ever learned to do. But instead he stayed quiet, as requested, twisting his hands together instead of reaching out.
“I can’t decide if it makes it better or worse that you broke your own heart at the same time,” Kurt said, sniffling a little. He finally turned to look at Blaine. “I don’t care what anyone says - what you say - this is supposed to be forever. You’re not allowed to screw it up like this.”
“Kurt, I…” Blaine began, startled into speech by what Kurt had just said. Once begun, though, he didn’t know where to go next.
“I’m not over it,” Kurt repeated, reaching out to take one of Blaine’s hands between both of his. “I’m not over it, but I think I want to be. Eventually. Do you want that?”
Blaine nodded, the movement so sharp that it caused tears to spill down his face, mirroring Kurt’s. He curled his fingers into Kurt’s, holding on.
Kurt didn’t lean over to kiss him, but Blaine hadn’t been expecting that. Instead, Kurt lapsed back into silence, looking out the window again while Blaine’s hand warmed in his.
Gradually, their tears subsided and their breathing slowed and evened. The tension between them, so pronounced it had been almost visible at the beginning of the night, smoothed out into something more manageable. And the dark side of Blaine’s brain, the part of himself that had been saying for weeks that he was only good for ruining things, finally quieted.
This time, the silence didn’t feel so sinister. It felt instead like the fallow place from which life could begin again.