Glee Fic: 15 Weeks to Intimacy - Week 2/15
Series Title: 15 Weeks to Intimacy
Chapter Title: I Want to Hold Your Hand (2/15)
Rating: G this part; NC-17 overall
Spoilers: 2.15 for now. I may or may not work in other canon events through 2.22, but I haven't decided yet.
Warnings: None
Word Count: ~1,900
Summary: "I’m going to need a couple seconds here to get my brain around this, because I just walked into a coffee shop and you called me out for being a prude, then said you’re in love with me and have some kind of nefarious scheme. I’m really getting how you’ve never been anybody’s boyfriend despite the charming and gorgeous now." A continuation of the story begun here by the esteemed mary_flanner.
Disclaimer: Glee and all related media are the property of Fox, Ryan Murphy, and plenty of other people I'm sure. All recognizable characters and locations contained herein are the property of the same. This piece of fiction is intended of fan enjoyment only and no monetary profit is being made from the distribution of said piece.
Notes: This was supposed to be the boys getting back in sync. Instead, sleepy!Kurt, angsty!Kurt, and my issues with 2.15 showed up. I just... IDEK, guys.... Took a few liberties with mary_flanner's original prompt; hope she doesn't mind!!
Week 1
I Want to Hold Your Hand
“The spaces between my fingers are right where yours fit perfectly.”
--Owl City
“So?” Kurt asks brightly, sitting down in front of the mocha Blaine’s gotten for him (again, the cheeky, beautiful, brilliant guy he is). “What’s the plan this week?”
Blaine looks a little confused for a moment, before understanding dawns and he grins widely at Kurt. “Really? We’re not going to pretend we’re here for just another regular coffee date?”
Kurt’s heart give a little flutter at that-sure, they’ve been calling them dates all week, but it still gets to him, for some reason (maybe it always will)-before he turns a similar grin on Blaine. “Well, we’re not, are we? So why beat around the bush?”
Blaine just grins wider. “All right, then.”
-----
And suddenly, it’s like the last week never happened. Like Blaine hadn’t spent the last seven days actively keeping his hands off of Kurt. Like they haven’t suddenly become more than friends.
Except when it really, really isn’t.
Because now, every touch is loaded with something more. And not the kind of more that Kurt had made up in his head before Valentine’s Day. Not the kind of more that made him willing to help his stepbrother carry a silly, drunken boy up to his bedroom, wishing that it had been for a different reason. Not the kind of more that made him go along with a crazy scheme courtesy of Sue freakin’ Sylvester. Not like that.
This is the kind of more that’s real.
Kurt notices it in the tiniest of places, the tiniest of ways.
It’s the easy way Blaine slips his arm through Kurt’s as they walk to lunch, elbows hooking together. It’s the natural flop of Blaine’s feet in his lap coupled with a wide, bold grin when they sit in the common room studying together. It’s the twitch of the pinky of the hand at the small of his back, edging its way toward his waistband that Kurt can feel even through his blazer, hyperaware as he always is of everything Blaine does around him.
It’s the fact that when Blaine takes his hand now, instead of just cupping their palms together, they interlace their fingers.
Blaine knows how much just holding hands means to Kurt. Somewhere between a disastrous public declaration of love for a badly dressed manager and a poorly advised invitation to a New Directions party, Blaine had been chuckling as they reminisced about their first meeting. Kurt isn’t sure what he’d looked like when Blaine had mentioned taking his hand, but it had been enough to make him reach out for Kurt’s hand again, a concerned look in his eyes, and Kurt had found himself telling Blaine about a funeral and a big, comforting hand in his and Friday night dinners. About a cold hospital room and a dark home and a Beatles song.
About a father that is better with action than words.
(Suddenly his hand in Kurt’s feels so much heavier than it ever has before.)
Which, Kurt reasons, is why Blaine had framed this week’s step of the plan the way he had.
“This week we hold hands. Nothing more than that.”
“Really? You think you can hold off at just that?” Kurt can’t help but ask with a smirk.
Blaine blushes. “Alright. Maybe I mean something more like a return to usual levels of me being my ridiculously touchy-feely self.”
Kurt nods slowly. “I take it this means I’m going to have to get on your case again about taking your shoes off before you fling your feet in my lap and wander all over the couches?” The grin Blaine sends his way is equal parts affectionate and exasperated.
But, even if the phrasing is more for Kurt than for Blaine, Kurt also knows that this week itself is as much about Blaine as it is about Kurt. Because Blaine really is the kind of guy that needs to be physically close to the people that matter to him, all strong, steady limbs that he lets drag him up onto furniture at vaguely inappropriate times. Kurt had seen felt how hard Blaine had to work to keep from reaching for him all week.
He can feel the shift in Blaine as early as Monday, when he finds Kurt outside his dorm room and slings an arm around his waist. Kurt lets out a bright laugh before dropping his own arm onto Blaine’s shoulders and letting Blaine walk him to class. In those few minutes, Blaine relaxes immeasurably beside him, a tension that Kurt hadn’t noticed bleeding out of his shoulders under Kurt’s hand.
Kurt grins down at him when they come to a stop outside his first period class. He turns to Blaine, cocking his head thoughtfully. Then a small smile spreads across his lips when he remembers that he’s allowed to touch, now. So he reaches a hand out to press a stray curl away from Blaine’s forehead. He doesn’t miss the way Blaine leans into the touch, looking more like a puppy getting his ear scratched than Kurt would have thought possible. He feels his smile soften. “Missed that more than you thought, huh?” he asks gently.
Blaine gives him a shaky grin. “Yeah. I definitely did.” Then he wraps Kurt in a brief, tight hug, looking surprised with himself, before heading off to his own class.
It takes Kurt a moment to recover from his surprise and head into class.
-----
The Warblers seem to breathe a collective sigh of relief when they walk into rehearsal hand-in-hand that afternoon. Stacy nudges Trent and nods at them, a grin spreading over his face as he does. Trent casts a quick glance at them before grinning back at the beat boxer. Kurt’s pretty sure most of them are up to speed on the state of his dating life; Nick’s a fine roommate, but he’s a bit of a gossip, and would have been intent on assuaging the group of the-apparently rampant, given what Blaine said about Wes and David’s interrogation-worry that he and Blaine had been going through a rough patch the week before.
Kurt rolls his eyes when Logan wiggles his eyebrows suggestively at him, before walking into the room, falling into his seat and tugging Blaine after him to press close alongside him. He threads his fingers through Blaine’s again, grateful for the closeness. He may have teased Blaine about it this morning, but he’s pretty sure he’d missed it almost as much as Blaine had.
They get in and out of their seats, they run through the music, and they rehearse the choreography (Kurt can’t help the eye roll at Wes’ insistence that they run through it once more-really, how hard is it to hop from side to side and snap? These steps could really use an upgrade), and other than the fact that Blaine brushes up against him a bit more than usual and each touch has the potential for more, honestly, not much has changed.
The rest of the week seems to follow the same pattern. They go to class, they go out for coffee, they go to Warblers’ practice, and when Blaine isn’t looking at him like he hung the moon, it feels like they’ve gone back to the way they were before. So when he follows Blaine back to his dorm for a study night after Warblers’ practice on Thursday, he’s not expecting much to change there either.
If Blaine notices that Kurt sits a little closer to Blaine than he used to when they curl up on his bed, he doesn’t say anything about it. If Kurt notices that Blaine holds his hand a little tighter than he used to, he doesn’t say anything about it.
If they’re both more comfortable in each other’s presence than they had been the whole week before, neither of them says anything about it.
He’s not exactly sure when it happened, but at some point while they sat and studied Blaine had started rubbing his thumb in slow, easy circles on the back of Kurt’s hand. They must be almost twenty minutes in when he realizes, but within minutes, he finds his eyes drifting closed, sleep tugging at him. Now that he knows he has permission, he can barely keep himself from leaning his head on Blaine’s shoulder. Still, he’s not sure yet how vulnerable he wants to let himself be around Blaine in this new context, and falling asleep would certainly fall into the category of ‘vulnerable’. That said, he hadn’t slept that well last week-even though he’d known consciously why Blaine hadn’t so much as brushed against him all week, he hadn’t quite internalized it, and some part of him had felt deeply rejected by the lack of physical contact. He hasn’t felt so close to sleep in days, so maybe…
Almost without thinking, he lets his head loll easily against Blaine’s shoulder. Just… just a few minutes then…
-----
Dusk has fallen by the time Kurt crawls his way back to consciousness again. He startles slightly when he realizes how late it has gotten. And when had he lain down? Oh god, Blaine’s going to be-
“Morning, Sunshine.”
Kurt sucks in a sharp breath, tipping his head back to meet Blaine’s eyes, to see him smiling softly down at Kurt. Every second Kurt gets closer to consciousness, he becomes more aware of the situation around him. He’d gone from upright to horizontal; from his head on Blaine’s shoulder to his head in Blaine’s lap (Jesus, Kurt, really?); from having Blaine’s hand in his to Blaine’s hand in-
“Have you been playing with my hair?” Kurt asks, voice still muddled with sleep.
Blaine’s fingers still, his face falling slightly. “Um… yes…? Sorry, is that-”
The second he feels Blaine’s fingers starting to slip away, Kurt lets out a low whine, arching back into the retreating hand. “Don’t sto~~p,” he whines through a pout, the fact that he’s still only half-awake the only thing keeping him from being self-conscious about the needy quality in his voice.
Blaine chuckles softly, his fingers resuming their easy path through Kurt’s hair. Kurt’s pretty sure that if he’d been a cat, he’d have been purring at the touch.
As he continues to wake up, Kurt casts a confused glance around the room. “S’all dark,” he murmurs thoughtfully.
“Didn’t have the heart to wake you to turn the light on.”
“Y’shouldn’t humor me like that,” Kurt murmurs, turning back to him. “Sets a bad precedent.”
Blaine hums noncommittally, his fingers never stilling in Kurt’s hair, his gaze bright and sharp on Kurt’s own.
And suddenly, Kurt is completely awake. He knows where this would go in one of his musicals, or one of the movies he watches with the girls, but somehow-here, now, him-it’s altogether too much. Yes, it would be romantic and sweet, and everything he’d thought he wanted before-Blaine leaning down and tilting his head just so-but somehow just the idea of-
Kurt sits up sharply, on his feet within seconds. “We should… we should get to dinner,” he mutters, eyes flitting around the room uneasily.
Blaine stares at him for a moment, wide-eyed and confused. Then his face softens and he nods. “Sure thing.”
It’s a process, Kurt has to remind himself. It’s not all going to go away in a second. It’s just… it’s just not.
He can tell himself that all he wants. It’s not going to make the healing any easier.
Week 3
Chapter Title: I Want to Hold Your Hand (2/15)
Rating: G this part; NC-17 overall
Spoilers: 2.15 for now. I may or may not work in other canon events through 2.22, but I haven't decided yet.
Warnings: None
Word Count: ~1,900
Summary: "I’m going to need a couple seconds here to get my brain around this, because I just walked into a coffee shop and you called me out for being a prude, then said you’re in love with me and have some kind of nefarious scheme. I’m really getting how you’ve never been anybody’s boyfriend despite the charming and gorgeous now." A continuation of the story begun here by the esteemed mary_flanner.
Disclaimer: Glee and all related media are the property of Fox, Ryan Murphy, and plenty of other people I'm sure. All recognizable characters and locations contained herein are the property of the same. This piece of fiction is intended of fan enjoyment only and no monetary profit is being made from the distribution of said piece.
Notes: This was supposed to be the boys getting back in sync. Instead, sleepy!Kurt, angsty!Kurt, and my issues with 2.15 showed up. I just... IDEK, guys.... Took a few liberties with mary_flanner's original prompt; hope she doesn't mind!!
Week 1
I Want to Hold Your Hand
“The spaces between my fingers are right where yours fit perfectly.”
--Owl City
“So?” Kurt asks brightly, sitting down in front of the mocha Blaine’s gotten for him (again, the cheeky, beautiful, brilliant guy he is). “What’s the plan this week?”
Blaine looks a little confused for a moment, before understanding dawns and he grins widely at Kurt. “Really? We’re not going to pretend we’re here for just another regular coffee date?”
Kurt’s heart give a little flutter at that-sure, they’ve been calling them dates all week, but it still gets to him, for some reason (maybe it always will)-before he turns a similar grin on Blaine. “Well, we’re not, are we? So why beat around the bush?”
Blaine just grins wider. “All right, then.”
-----
And suddenly, it’s like the last week never happened. Like Blaine hadn’t spent the last seven days actively keeping his hands off of Kurt. Like they haven’t suddenly become more than friends.
Except when it really, really isn’t.
Because now, every touch is loaded with something more. And not the kind of more that Kurt had made up in his head before Valentine’s Day. Not the kind of more that made him willing to help his stepbrother carry a silly, drunken boy up to his bedroom, wishing that it had been for a different reason. Not the kind of more that made him go along with a crazy scheme courtesy of Sue freakin’ Sylvester. Not like that.
This is the kind of more that’s real.
Kurt notices it in the tiniest of places, the tiniest of ways.
It’s the easy way Blaine slips his arm through Kurt’s as they walk to lunch, elbows hooking together. It’s the natural flop of Blaine’s feet in his lap coupled with a wide, bold grin when they sit in the common room studying together. It’s the twitch of the pinky of the hand at the small of his back, edging its way toward his waistband that Kurt can feel even through his blazer, hyperaware as he always is of everything Blaine does around him.
It’s the fact that when Blaine takes his hand now, instead of just cupping their palms together, they interlace their fingers.
Blaine knows how much just holding hands means to Kurt. Somewhere between a disastrous public declaration of love for a badly dressed manager and a poorly advised invitation to a New Directions party, Blaine had been chuckling as they reminisced about their first meeting. Kurt isn’t sure what he’d looked like when Blaine had mentioned taking his hand, but it had been enough to make him reach out for Kurt’s hand again, a concerned look in his eyes, and Kurt had found himself telling Blaine about a funeral and a big, comforting hand in his and Friday night dinners. About a cold hospital room and a dark home and a Beatles song.
About a father that is better with action than words.
(Suddenly his hand in Kurt’s feels so much heavier than it ever has before.)
Which, Kurt reasons, is why Blaine had framed this week’s step of the plan the way he had.
“This week we hold hands. Nothing more than that.”
“Really? You think you can hold off at just that?” Kurt can’t help but ask with a smirk.
Blaine blushes. “Alright. Maybe I mean something more like a return to usual levels of me being my ridiculously touchy-feely self.”
Kurt nods slowly. “I take it this means I’m going to have to get on your case again about taking your shoes off before you fling your feet in my lap and wander all over the couches?” The grin Blaine sends his way is equal parts affectionate and exasperated.
But, even if the phrasing is more for Kurt than for Blaine, Kurt also knows that this week itself is as much about Blaine as it is about Kurt. Because Blaine really is the kind of guy that needs to be physically close to the people that matter to him, all strong, steady limbs that he lets drag him up onto furniture at vaguely inappropriate times. Kurt had seen felt how hard Blaine had to work to keep from reaching for him all week.
He can feel the shift in Blaine as early as Monday, when he finds Kurt outside his dorm room and slings an arm around his waist. Kurt lets out a bright laugh before dropping his own arm onto Blaine’s shoulders and letting Blaine walk him to class. In those few minutes, Blaine relaxes immeasurably beside him, a tension that Kurt hadn’t noticed bleeding out of his shoulders under Kurt’s hand.
Kurt grins down at him when they come to a stop outside his first period class. He turns to Blaine, cocking his head thoughtfully. Then a small smile spreads across his lips when he remembers that he’s allowed to touch, now. So he reaches a hand out to press a stray curl away from Blaine’s forehead. He doesn’t miss the way Blaine leans into the touch, looking more like a puppy getting his ear scratched than Kurt would have thought possible. He feels his smile soften. “Missed that more than you thought, huh?” he asks gently.
Blaine gives him a shaky grin. “Yeah. I definitely did.” Then he wraps Kurt in a brief, tight hug, looking surprised with himself, before heading off to his own class.
It takes Kurt a moment to recover from his surprise and head into class.
-----
The Warblers seem to breathe a collective sigh of relief when they walk into rehearsal hand-in-hand that afternoon. Stacy nudges Trent and nods at them, a grin spreading over his face as he does. Trent casts a quick glance at them before grinning back at the beat boxer. Kurt’s pretty sure most of them are up to speed on the state of his dating life; Nick’s a fine roommate, but he’s a bit of a gossip, and would have been intent on assuaging the group of the-apparently rampant, given what Blaine said about Wes and David’s interrogation-worry that he and Blaine had been going through a rough patch the week before.
Kurt rolls his eyes when Logan wiggles his eyebrows suggestively at him, before walking into the room, falling into his seat and tugging Blaine after him to press close alongside him. He threads his fingers through Blaine’s again, grateful for the closeness. He may have teased Blaine about it this morning, but he’s pretty sure he’d missed it almost as much as Blaine had.
They get in and out of their seats, they run through the music, and they rehearse the choreography (Kurt can’t help the eye roll at Wes’ insistence that they run through it once more-really, how hard is it to hop from side to side and snap? These steps could really use an upgrade), and other than the fact that Blaine brushes up against him a bit more than usual and each touch has the potential for more, honestly, not much has changed.
The rest of the week seems to follow the same pattern. They go to class, they go out for coffee, they go to Warblers’ practice, and when Blaine isn’t looking at him like he hung the moon, it feels like they’ve gone back to the way they were before. So when he follows Blaine back to his dorm for a study night after Warblers’ practice on Thursday, he’s not expecting much to change there either.
If Blaine notices that Kurt sits a little closer to Blaine than he used to when they curl up on his bed, he doesn’t say anything about it. If Kurt notices that Blaine holds his hand a little tighter than he used to, he doesn’t say anything about it.
If they’re both more comfortable in each other’s presence than they had been the whole week before, neither of them says anything about it.
He’s not exactly sure when it happened, but at some point while they sat and studied Blaine had started rubbing his thumb in slow, easy circles on the back of Kurt’s hand. They must be almost twenty minutes in when he realizes, but within minutes, he finds his eyes drifting closed, sleep tugging at him. Now that he knows he has permission, he can barely keep himself from leaning his head on Blaine’s shoulder. Still, he’s not sure yet how vulnerable he wants to let himself be around Blaine in this new context, and falling asleep would certainly fall into the category of ‘vulnerable’. That said, he hadn’t slept that well last week-even though he’d known consciously why Blaine hadn’t so much as brushed against him all week, he hadn’t quite internalized it, and some part of him had felt deeply rejected by the lack of physical contact. He hasn’t felt so close to sleep in days, so maybe…
Almost without thinking, he lets his head loll easily against Blaine’s shoulder. Just… just a few minutes then…
-----
Dusk has fallen by the time Kurt crawls his way back to consciousness again. He startles slightly when he realizes how late it has gotten. And when had he lain down? Oh god, Blaine’s going to be-
“Morning, Sunshine.”
Kurt sucks in a sharp breath, tipping his head back to meet Blaine’s eyes, to see him smiling softly down at Kurt. Every second Kurt gets closer to consciousness, he becomes more aware of the situation around him. He’d gone from upright to horizontal; from his head on Blaine’s shoulder to his head in Blaine’s lap (Jesus, Kurt, really?); from having Blaine’s hand in his to Blaine’s hand in-
“Have you been playing with my hair?” Kurt asks, voice still muddled with sleep.
Blaine’s fingers still, his face falling slightly. “Um… yes…? Sorry, is that-”
The second he feels Blaine’s fingers starting to slip away, Kurt lets out a low whine, arching back into the retreating hand. “Don’t sto~~p,” he whines through a pout, the fact that he’s still only half-awake the only thing keeping him from being self-conscious about the needy quality in his voice.
Blaine chuckles softly, his fingers resuming their easy path through Kurt’s hair. Kurt’s pretty sure that if he’d been a cat, he’d have been purring at the touch.
As he continues to wake up, Kurt casts a confused glance around the room. “S’all dark,” he murmurs thoughtfully.
“Didn’t have the heart to wake you to turn the light on.”
“Y’shouldn’t humor me like that,” Kurt murmurs, turning back to him. “Sets a bad precedent.”
Blaine hums noncommittally, his fingers never stilling in Kurt’s hair, his gaze bright and sharp on Kurt’s own.
And suddenly, Kurt is completely awake. He knows where this would go in one of his musicals, or one of the movies he watches with the girls, but somehow-here, now, him-it’s altogether too much. Yes, it would be romantic and sweet, and everything he’d thought he wanted before-Blaine leaning down and tilting his head just so-but somehow just the idea of-
Kurt sits up sharply, on his feet within seconds. “We should… we should get to dinner,” he mutters, eyes flitting around the room uneasily.
Blaine stares at him for a moment, wide-eyed and confused. Then his face softens and he nods. “Sure thing.”
It’s a process, Kurt has to remind himself. It’s not all going to go away in a second. It’s just… it’s just not.
He can tell himself that all he wants. It’s not going to make the healing any easier.
Week 3