Fic: Sparks Fly 3/12
Title: Sparks Fly 3/12
Author: gameboycolor
Pairing/Characters: Kurt Anderson/Blaine Hummel
Spoilers: none
(Overall) Warnings: Bullying, violence, homophobia
Rating: R overall (subject to change)
Length: ~1700 / 5600
Summary: Season 2 AU, Kurt/Blaine character swap. Written for this prompt on the GKM.
A/N: We are officially caught up to where I was on the GKM! Yay!
Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three
The first fifteen minutes of Warblers practices are spent going over the minutes from the previous practice. The practice that they had all attended. It was tradition.
It is also tradition for Kurt to use this time to catch up on texts and emails. It’s easy enough to tune out the sound of Wes’ voice.
Rent’s playing at the Community Playhouse.
Kurt stares down at his phone. His stomach always starts to sink when Blaine takes too long to answer one of his texts. He’s started to piece together Blaine’s life at McKinley, and a small break in communication is enough for Kurt to assume the worst.
Because he knows the worst.
Luckily, Blaine doesn’t keep him waiting for too long.
Cool.
Kurt frowns. Do you like not like Rent, or...?
I love Rent. Why?
It wouldn’t kill you to be a little more excited.
???
Kurt shakes his head. He hadn’t realized that he would have to clarify. I’m asking you if you’d like to come with me. It could be fun.
Oh!! I would love to! Accompany you, that is. :) When are we going?
Friday? I’ll pick you up at 5.
Perfect.
He’s doing what he can to reach out to Blaine. Kurt knows that his experience at his last school would have been greatly improved if he had a friend to reach out to in times of need, someone who had been through it before. He’s willing to offer his guidance in what little ways he can.
Overlooking Blaine spying on the Warblers had been his first good deed. Kurt had even asked the Warblers to overlook this minor trespassing. It wasn’t as though he had actually witnessed the performance.
Besides, Blaine was harmless.
The other Warblers had been willing to go easy on Blaine, and had even started to tease Kurt about the apparent crush Blaine was nursing on Kurt. The comments made Kurt stiffen and quickly change the subject. He wasn’t comfortable discussing personal matters with the other Warblers, especially not when some of the arrangements on Lights were still so rough.
Blaine isn’t the only one who needs a break from school. Sectionals are approaching, along with Kurt’s first competition solo. The second number is still undecided, but he’s considering auditioning for that one as well. He doesn’t mean to hog the spotlight, he’s just trying to make up for the time he lost when he was still trying to make himself invisible.
He wants to be as loud as he can be while still utilizing the safety of the Dalton reds and blues.
“Warbler Kurt?”
Kurt quickly pockets his phone and directs his attention to the council table. “Yes?”
Wes doesn’t look pleased. He rarely is. “I’m aware your social life is probably more pressing than our set list...”
“It’s not,” Kurt quickly corrects. “You have my attention.”
He hears murmurs of ‘it’s probably that McKinley kid again’ and he presses his fingernails into his palms to keep from snapping at them.
“Very well then,” Wes nods. “As I was saying, we will open with the Ellie Goulding number. Kurt Anderson will be the featured soloist. The second number, however, is still open to auditions...”
-
“You’re quiet tonight,” Kurt observes. He’s been watching Blaine over the course of the evening, waiting patiently for him to relax.
They had reached the point in the evening where there was a gap between the end of their proposed activities and Blaine’s curfew, and Blaine had barely said a word. His hands had twisted nervously in his program, and his only response to Kurt’s observations had been strained smiles.
So Kurt had taken them to a park near Blaine’s house. He had passed it on his way to picking him up.
Blaine had chosen the swings.
“Am I?” Blaine asks. He kicks off the ground to propel himself higher.
Kurt understands that there is a difference between communicating by text and speaking face to face, but Blaine is less talkative than he was that day at Dalton. Kurt is concerned.
“You are. I wouldn’t have had to say anything if you weren’t.”
“Sorry,” he plants his feet on the ground, causing his swing to come to a stop. “It’s been a rough week.”
Kurt’s mouth twists into a frown. “How rough?”
“Been better, been worse.”
“Blaine.”
“It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before,” he says. His tone is dismissive, like he wants to drop the topic.
Kurt is too stubborn to let the subject drop.
“That doesn’t mean you should have to deal with it.”
Blaine’s head snaps up. “Well, we can’t all afford to run off to Dalton, Kurt.”
It stings, as it should. Kurt is more than aware that he lives a life of certain privileges. He would argue to Blaine that it comes at a certain cost, but like most things, that is none of Blaine’s business.
“If you could, though?” Kurt asks. “If you could find a way to reasonably transfer to Dalton, would you?”
“I don’t know?” Blaine shrugs. “Maybe? Probably? It almost feels like I don’t have a good enough reason to leave. I mean, there are people who have had it worse.”
“That doesn’t make your issues any less significant.”
Kurt knows this to be true. If he believed that Blaine’s issues at school weren’t significant, he wouldn’t have reached out to him in the first place. He doesn’t spend time on things that he considers to be a waste of time.
“Boxing in the only way I feel like I can get away from everything, and this asshole at my school is trying to taking that away from me.”
“You box?” Kurt gives Blaine an unconscious onceover.
“It helps. I can’t punch the ugliness I see in the world, so I punch the bag instead.”
“And this guy?”
“He’s built like a freaking wall. I haven’t gone back to the gym since he told me to stay out of it.”
“You’re not going to like my answer,” Kurt starts.
Blaine gives him a weak smile. “You’re going to tell me anyway.”
“Find somewhere else to box. There’s a ton of gyms around here. It’s not worth trying to stand up to this guy.”
“I guess.”
Kurt notices Blaine’s hands are gripping the chains of his swing perhaps a little harder than necessary. He reaches out to cover one of Blaine’s hands with his. “You know I’m here, right?”
Another smile, just as faint as the last one. “I know.”
He wants Blaine to believe that he isn’t all talk. Kurt is used to encountering people who are like that, all talk. They say they are there to help but they’re nowhere to be found when you actually need them.
Kurt needs Blaine to believe him.
-
It isn’t until Kurt has already dropped Blaine off and is halfway back to Westerville that the gears in his head start to turn. He mentally scolds himself for not coming up with something sooner.
Kurt loves to fix things. It’s in his nature. He may not talk to the Warblers much outside of class and Warblers related business, but when he sees something he can fix, he can’t help saying something. He once managed to convince Jeff to let him correct the two-tone effect that had been the product of his ‘beginners luck’ with bleach. He’s becoming excellent at diffusing awkward conversations, a skill he has honed over years of strained Anderson dinners.
He’s a fixer.
Realistically, he knows that he can’t do anything to help Blaine this semester, but he can still help him set a plan into motion for transferring to Dalton in the spring. Blaine isn’t happy at McKinley. Kurt hasn’t know him long, but he’s known him long enough to figure that out.
And besides, hadn’t he told Blaine that planning for the future was the best way to distract oneself?
He leaves the admissions office the next day armed with every single piece of literature regarding financial aid and school vouchers. Once he’s back in his dorm room, he begins to take notes and put together a plan for Blaine.
Blaine will be thrilled. Kurt’s sure of it.
-
Kurt puts down the stack of brochures on the table between them. “Your fairy godmother has arrived!” He plucks out the one about private school vouchers and begins flipping through it.
“Is this some kind of joke?” Blaine asks. “You said we were meeting for coffee.”
“Coffee and planning,” Kurt corrects him.
Blaine is quiet as he looks over the brochures. “Listen, Kurt, this was really nice of you...”
“I know it was.” Kurt doesn’t offer his friendship or his assistance lightly.
“Kurt...” Blaine shakes his head. “It would help me out for a semester, but what about after that? I can’t ask my Dad for that kind of money. And then I would be right back at McKinley. What’s the point?”
It’s strange. Kurt is used to people being grateful when he lends a helping hand. This polite refusal of his help is not something that he’s used to encountering.
“We’ll figure something out,” Kurt says. He refuses to let Blaine give up on this. “We have a better gym then McKinley, I bet. No one would bother you if you wanted to box there.”
“I really don’t want to talk about this anymore,” he replies quietly, his expression guarded.
Blaine’s grip on the coffee cup is so tight that Kurt is surprised the plastic lid hasn’t popped off from the pressure. He doesn’t look at Kurt, he looks at the table.
This is how he knows he’s crossed a line. It hadn’t been his intent to make Blaine feel uncomfortable, but regardless of his intent, he had.
Kurt’s stomach starts to sink. He knows how it feels to want to be left alone, and he hates that he’s driven Blaine to feeling like this. He still fully intends to revisit the topic at a later date, but he’ll have to wait until Blaine is more open to the idea.
“Okay.” They won’t talk about it then. Not yet, anyway. “Please tell me you watched Project Runway last night.”
One look at Blaine’s grateful smile and Kurt knows that he’s made the right decision to change the topic.
Author: gameboycolor
Pairing/Characters: Kurt Anderson/Blaine Hummel
Spoilers: none
(Overall) Warnings: Bullying, violence, homophobia
Rating: R overall (subject to change)
Length: ~1700 / 5600
Summary: Season 2 AU, Kurt/Blaine character swap. Written for this prompt on the GKM.
A/N: We are officially caught up to where I was on the GKM! Yay!
Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three
The first fifteen minutes of Warblers practices are spent going over the minutes from the previous practice. The practice that they had all attended. It was tradition.
It is also tradition for Kurt to use this time to catch up on texts and emails. It’s easy enough to tune out the sound of Wes’ voice.
Rent’s playing at the Community Playhouse.
Kurt stares down at his phone. His stomach always starts to sink when Blaine takes too long to answer one of his texts. He’s started to piece together Blaine’s life at McKinley, and a small break in communication is enough for Kurt to assume the worst.
Because he knows the worst.
Luckily, Blaine doesn’t keep him waiting for too long.
Cool.
Kurt frowns. Do you like not like Rent, or...?
I love Rent. Why?
It wouldn’t kill you to be a little more excited.
???
Kurt shakes his head. He hadn’t realized that he would have to clarify. I’m asking you if you’d like to come with me. It could be fun.
Oh!! I would love to! Accompany you, that is. :) When are we going?
Friday? I’ll pick you up at 5.
Perfect.
He’s doing what he can to reach out to Blaine. Kurt knows that his experience at his last school would have been greatly improved if he had a friend to reach out to in times of need, someone who had been through it before. He’s willing to offer his guidance in what little ways he can.
Overlooking Blaine spying on the Warblers had been his first good deed. Kurt had even asked the Warblers to overlook this minor trespassing. It wasn’t as though he had actually witnessed the performance.
Besides, Blaine was harmless.
The other Warblers had been willing to go easy on Blaine, and had even started to tease Kurt about the apparent crush Blaine was nursing on Kurt. The comments made Kurt stiffen and quickly change the subject. He wasn’t comfortable discussing personal matters with the other Warblers, especially not when some of the arrangements on Lights were still so rough.
Blaine isn’t the only one who needs a break from school. Sectionals are approaching, along with Kurt’s first competition solo. The second number is still undecided, but he’s considering auditioning for that one as well. He doesn’t mean to hog the spotlight, he’s just trying to make up for the time he lost when he was still trying to make himself invisible.
He wants to be as loud as he can be while still utilizing the safety of the Dalton reds and blues.
“Warbler Kurt?”
Kurt quickly pockets his phone and directs his attention to the council table. “Yes?”
Wes doesn’t look pleased. He rarely is. “I’m aware your social life is probably more pressing than our set list...”
“It’s not,” Kurt quickly corrects. “You have my attention.”
He hears murmurs of ‘it’s probably that McKinley kid again’ and he presses his fingernails into his palms to keep from snapping at them.
“Very well then,” Wes nods. “As I was saying, we will open with the Ellie Goulding number. Kurt Anderson will be the featured soloist. The second number, however, is still open to auditions...”
-
“You’re quiet tonight,” Kurt observes. He’s been watching Blaine over the course of the evening, waiting patiently for him to relax.
They had reached the point in the evening where there was a gap between the end of their proposed activities and Blaine’s curfew, and Blaine had barely said a word. His hands had twisted nervously in his program, and his only response to Kurt’s observations had been strained smiles.
So Kurt had taken them to a park near Blaine’s house. He had passed it on his way to picking him up.
Blaine had chosen the swings.
“Am I?” Blaine asks. He kicks off the ground to propel himself higher.
Kurt understands that there is a difference between communicating by text and speaking face to face, but Blaine is less talkative than he was that day at Dalton. Kurt is concerned.
“You are. I wouldn’t have had to say anything if you weren’t.”
“Sorry,” he plants his feet on the ground, causing his swing to come to a stop. “It’s been a rough week.”
Kurt’s mouth twists into a frown. “How rough?”
“Been better, been worse.”
“Blaine.”
“It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before,” he says. His tone is dismissive, like he wants to drop the topic.
Kurt is too stubborn to let the subject drop.
“That doesn’t mean you should have to deal with it.”
Blaine’s head snaps up. “Well, we can’t all afford to run off to Dalton, Kurt.”
It stings, as it should. Kurt is more than aware that he lives a life of certain privileges. He would argue to Blaine that it comes at a certain cost, but like most things, that is none of Blaine’s business.
“If you could, though?” Kurt asks. “If you could find a way to reasonably transfer to Dalton, would you?”
“I don’t know?” Blaine shrugs. “Maybe? Probably? It almost feels like I don’t have a good enough reason to leave. I mean, there are people who have had it worse.”
“That doesn’t make your issues any less significant.”
Kurt knows this to be true. If he believed that Blaine’s issues at school weren’t significant, he wouldn’t have reached out to him in the first place. He doesn’t spend time on things that he considers to be a waste of time.
“Boxing in the only way I feel like I can get away from everything, and this asshole at my school is trying to taking that away from me.”
“You box?” Kurt gives Blaine an unconscious onceover.
“It helps. I can’t punch the ugliness I see in the world, so I punch the bag instead.”
“And this guy?”
“He’s built like a freaking wall. I haven’t gone back to the gym since he told me to stay out of it.”
“You’re not going to like my answer,” Kurt starts.
Blaine gives him a weak smile. “You’re going to tell me anyway.”
“Find somewhere else to box. There’s a ton of gyms around here. It’s not worth trying to stand up to this guy.”
“I guess.”
Kurt notices Blaine’s hands are gripping the chains of his swing perhaps a little harder than necessary. He reaches out to cover one of Blaine’s hands with his. “You know I’m here, right?”
Another smile, just as faint as the last one. “I know.”
He wants Blaine to believe that he isn’t all talk. Kurt is used to encountering people who are like that, all talk. They say they are there to help but they’re nowhere to be found when you actually need them.
Kurt needs Blaine to believe him.
-
It isn’t until Kurt has already dropped Blaine off and is halfway back to Westerville that the gears in his head start to turn. He mentally scolds himself for not coming up with something sooner.
Kurt loves to fix things. It’s in his nature. He may not talk to the Warblers much outside of class and Warblers related business, but when he sees something he can fix, he can’t help saying something. He once managed to convince Jeff to let him correct the two-tone effect that had been the product of his ‘beginners luck’ with bleach. He’s becoming excellent at diffusing awkward conversations, a skill he has honed over years of strained Anderson dinners.
He’s a fixer.
Realistically, he knows that he can’t do anything to help Blaine this semester, but he can still help him set a plan into motion for transferring to Dalton in the spring. Blaine isn’t happy at McKinley. Kurt hasn’t know him long, but he’s known him long enough to figure that out.
And besides, hadn’t he told Blaine that planning for the future was the best way to distract oneself?
He leaves the admissions office the next day armed with every single piece of literature regarding financial aid and school vouchers. Once he’s back in his dorm room, he begins to take notes and put together a plan for Blaine.
Blaine will be thrilled. Kurt’s sure of it.
-
Kurt puts down the stack of brochures on the table between them. “Your fairy godmother has arrived!” He plucks out the one about private school vouchers and begins flipping through it.
“Is this some kind of joke?” Blaine asks. “You said we were meeting for coffee.”
“Coffee and planning,” Kurt corrects him.
Blaine is quiet as he looks over the brochures. “Listen, Kurt, this was really nice of you...”
“I know it was.” Kurt doesn’t offer his friendship or his assistance lightly.
“Kurt...” Blaine shakes his head. “It would help me out for a semester, but what about after that? I can’t ask my Dad for that kind of money. And then I would be right back at McKinley. What’s the point?”
It’s strange. Kurt is used to people being grateful when he lends a helping hand. This polite refusal of his help is not something that he’s used to encountering.
“We’ll figure something out,” Kurt says. He refuses to let Blaine give up on this. “We have a better gym then McKinley, I bet. No one would bother you if you wanted to box there.”
“I really don’t want to talk about this anymore,” he replies quietly, his expression guarded.
Blaine’s grip on the coffee cup is so tight that Kurt is surprised the plastic lid hasn’t popped off from the pressure. He doesn’t look at Kurt, he looks at the table.
This is how he knows he’s crossed a line. It hadn’t been his intent to make Blaine feel uncomfortable, but regardless of his intent, he had.
Kurt’s stomach starts to sink. He knows how it feels to want to be left alone, and he hates that he’s driven Blaine to feeling like this. He still fully intends to revisit the topic at a later date, but he’ll have to wait until Blaine is more open to the idea.
“Okay.” They won’t talk about it then. Not yet, anyway. “Please tell me you watched Project Runway last night.”
One look at Blaine’s grateful smile and Kurt knows that he’s made the right decision to change the topic.