Happy Holidays Fabrisse!
Title: earthbound, looking at the stars
Recipient: Fabrisse
Author: to be revealed January 3rd, 2012
Rating: R
Word Count: 3,114
Summary: The best relationships are about compromise, perspective, and a little faith (of some kind) that the future is written in the stars.
Notes: Huge thanks to glitterburn for doing more than I've ever asked a beta to do before.
earthbound, looking at the stars
"You have got to be joking."
The silence that follows Kurt’s outburst is broken by the rumble of a salt truck passing on the highway. Flecks of gravel spray across the frosted asphalt and ping against the bodywork of Blaine’s car. For a moment it sounds like rain, but the night sky is clear and the stars are hidden by nothing more than the glow of the streetlamps.
The heaters are on low. Too low. Kurt flexes his fingers. Maybe he shouldn’t have worn fingerless gloves, but he’d made the decision based on an entirely different set of parameters and it’s too late now. He curls his hands into fists; not because he’s angry, but because it’s one way of keeping them warm. He always feels cold when he’s not moving, even if, as in this instance, the only momentum comes from the car.
Blaine is gazing at him, face cast half into shadow, a line of sodium light striping over his cheekbone and curving into his chin. He laughs, the sound soft and patient. "Actually, it’s not a joke. I thought it’d be fun. I thought we’d have fun."
"Fun." Kurt gives him a look. "Blaine. When has the definition of ‘fun’ ever been ‘go wading through the snow over uneven ground at night in a creepy woodland accompanied by your ex-classmates’?"
Blaine chuckles. "It’s one of my definitions of fun. And we can’t exactly sit around watching The Sound of Music every night-"
"It’s a Christmas classic!"
"Yeah. It’s also kinda boring. Especially after the eighth time." Blaine gives him the hangdog look that for some reason always seems to work. "C’mon, Kurt," he says, wheedling. "It’s just one night. You were a Warbler, too. You were one of us. Them." He flashes a smile to cover the slip. "It’ll be fun."
Kurt lifts his shoulders within the tight confines of his coat. "You said this was going to be a romantic night of stargazing."
Blaine starts the car again. "We can still do that. The Dalton grounds are pretty extensive and are not, contrary to what freshmen are told, guarded by attack dogs. We can leave just as soon as you get bored. I promise."
"Yes, well-your promises seem to be rather flexible."
"Kurt..."
"Blaine." Kurt turns in his seat, looks at him full-on. "You lied to me."
Blaine laughs again, apologetic now, and he gives a sort of dismissive wave before he puts both hands on the wheel. "I just wanted us to have a bit of fun."
"Well, then..." Kurt pauses, reconsiders his options, then lifts a hand and dances his fingers along the back of the driver’s seat and onto Blaine’s shoulder. Blaine shivers at the touch. Pleased by the response, Kurt leans closer and lowers his voice. "Well, then, if it’s fun you want, why don’t we skip the boring part and go right to the main event? We don’t need to go all the way to the Dalton woods. We can just make out in the back seat. You have a thing for the back seat, don’t you?"
There’s a long pause. Blaine keeps his gaze fixed through the windshield. His hands grip the steering wheel. "I’d like to say I’m tempted, but..."
"Oh?" Kurt drops his caress and raises his eyebrows. "You don’t want to get down in the back seat with me?"
"You know I do." Blaine looks over, bites his lip. "I would, too, but... this is the 33 and it’s kinda busy, and if we get busy then..."
"Fine." Kurt lifts his chin and sits up straight, the very model of decorum. "I wasn’t suggesting we do anything right here and now."
Blaine makes a soft noise that might be a sigh. "Look, we’re closer to Westerville than we are to Lima, so why don’t we just go for a little while?"
Kurt closes his eyes briefly. "Please don’t say I might just enjoy it. If you say that, I’ll get out and walk home."
"No, you won’t." Blaine gives him an indulgent look then glances down to where Kurt’s long legs are folded in the footwell. "You’re wearing new boots. You walk more than a hundred yards in those things and you’ll get blisters."
Kurt huffs and turns his head to look out of the window. "I didn’t think you’d noticed."
Blaine leans across as far as the seatbelt will allow. His voice is warm and ticklish against Kurt’s cheek when he says, "I noticed."
*
They park up on the side of Dalton’s gravel-strewn driveway. Blaine kills the lights, turns off the engine, and they sit in silence for a moment, listening to the tick of cooling metal.
Kurt takes a breath. "So let me get this straight. At this time of year the Warblers become a cohort of neo-pagans, and you expect me to tag along with you to the creepy Dalton woods, at midnight, in the snow, to share in what the fundamentalist Christian majority describes as goat sacrifice and witchcraft?"
"I told you, it’s nothing more than a Wassailing party. Just an excuse to drink spiced cider around a bonfire." Blaine adjusts his old school scarf, his smile somewhere between incredulous and amused. "We drink, we sing, we jump on a few fallen logs while we dance around-it’s pretty much a normal Warbler get-together."
"Except for the bit where you sacrifice a goat."
"A straw goat," Blaine protests gently.
Kurt sniffs. "And chant a prayer."
"It’s just an old poem written by a Warbler back in the 1920s."
"I don’t do religion, Blaine, you know that. You need to respect that. Pagan rituals, whether intended or not, still means a bunch of crazy people calling on a non-existent higher power."
Blaine looks at him. "This isn’t about church, Kurt. It’s about tradition."
"Church is tradition."
"So’s atheism." The words hang between them, then Blaine tugs at the door handle and the interior light flashes on.
"It’s not the same!" Kurt wriggles free of his seatbelt and gets out of the car before Blaine can open the door for him. He’s struggling with the need to express himself; he doesn’t want any of Blaine’s distractions while he tries to fit words to his emotions. "I don’t want to come across as bitchy..."
"You don’t," Blaine assures him, tucking Kurt’s scarf into his coat.
Kurt had spent ten minutes arranging the scarf so it folded in casual disarray, an invitation to touch and unravel. He doesn’t want it tucked neatly inside his coat like he’s a child. He bats at Blaine’s hands, pulls at the scarf. "I suppose I sound insecure."
Blaine leans back, regarding him with easy affection. "Nope."
"Then do you understand why I don’t feel comfortable with this whole experience?"
Blaine considers. Shakes his head. "No. But it doesn’t matter, because I respect your choices just as you respect mine." He sweeps his arm wide, gestures to the quiet expanse of Dalton’s lawns and the dark tangle of woodland beyond. "Come on. It’s really not as bad as you think."
Kurt summons a bright smile. "That’s what they always say."
*
He’s determined to make the most of this, even if he has to make the situation fit his own standards. It’s not that he asks for the impossible; it’s more that he has certain expectations, and it’s hard, sometimes, to swing those expectations around to fit with reality. Kurt knows, and not even in a deep down way, that romantic relationships are not as fraught or as wildly passionate as they are in musicals. Love on stage lasts for two and a half hours, plus intermission; its depth is measured in the twist of its lyrics and in the work of octaves.
A real life relationship is both better and worse. It’s taking him a while to adjust to the idea that he and Blaine might be a four-minute country ballad rather than the Nibelungen, and it’s even more of an adjustment to realise that it doesn’t matter. They have each other and they have now, and that’s what’s important.
As they trudge through the tide of snow reaching across the Dalton lawns, they swing their clasped hands and giggle, breath steaming and drifting to cloud around their heads. Kurt keeps his back to the solid, square shape of the school behind him. He prefers the illusion that they’re out for their romantic stroll in the moonlight.
The truth is, Dalton makes him feel adrift. It used to be a haven, a perfect enclosed little sanctuary where he could be accepted and petted, but then he grew up and he needed something more than to be a cog in a wheel, a brick in a wall. It sounds stupid, and he doesn’t think he can explain it to Blaine, who needed Dalton-who still needs Dalton-for the same reason that Kurt doesn’t want it. McKinley is dysfunctional beyond belief and a sad indictment of the No Child Left Behind policy, but there’s a kind of freedom in the dysfunction. Making something from nothing, like when an old person says they had to make their own entertainment when they were young, when all they had for Christmas was a piece of string and a rubber band.
Blaine pulls in one direction, heading towards a scuffed set of multiple prints left in the snow. Kurt lets his hand slip free and stands for a moment on the edge of the lawn, looking up at the stars. Then he notices the tree, black-fingered against the deep, dark midnight blue. He goes closer. The snow covers rises and troughs, and he wades through the drifts, the chill catching above the line of his boots, just below his knees. But it’s important that he reaches the tree, so he ignores the cold and the damp creeping through the fabric of his pants, and finally he’s there, almost giddy with exertion, breath fogging in front of him.
"Hello, Pavarotti," he says softly, as soft as the snowflakes that shiver down from the bare branches. He stands there in silence, thinking of the living bird in its cage, the dead bird in its gilded casket, and he’s overwhelmed with something that feels almost like sadness, but at the same time he feels glad.
He wonders if this is schadenfreude, but that doesn’t feel right, either.
Blaine shuffles through the snow behind him, puts a mittened hand on his shoulder. "Hey."
Kurt turns and manages a smile. "I’m cold. Point me in the direction of the bonfire and the cheap cider."
*
Sebastian is at the Wassailing. Of course he is; there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be, but Kurt had hoped-wildly, foolishly-that this sort of gathering would be beneath him. But then Kurt realises that the combination of alcohol and deserted woodland and Christmas cheer and camaraderie could lead to certain inevitabilities, not just for the curious but also for those who had never before felt the need to question their sexuality. And it stands to reason that Sebastian, shark that he is, snake that he is, would want to be on hand, as it were, to take full advantage of any such confusion.
Also, Kurt reminds himself, Sebastian probably figured that Blaine would be here, and Sebastian wouldn’t miss an opportunity for flirtation. If you could call that flirting. More like unsubtle seduction. The sledgehammer approach to sex. Ugh.
Blaine glances over. "You okay?"
"I’m fine," Kurt says. "Why?"
A furrow appears between Blaine’s eyebrows. "Nothing. Only, you’re sort of crushing my hand."
"Oh." Kurt lets go just as they step from the darkness into the circle of light cast by the bonfire. The flickering glow makes everyone look demonic, changes cries of welcome into hellish whoops, and then Sebastian is there in front of them, blocking the way to the warmth of the fire.
"Hey," Sebastian says, ignoring Kurt and fixing Blaine with a hot-eyed look. "I’m so glad you could make it. Wouldn’t be a party without you."
Blaine gives a self-conscious laugh. "The Wassailing Warblers are a legend. Of course I was going to be here."
"Great. You need some class at this time of year." Sebastian’s gaze is insolent and invasive, flicking up and down Blaine’s body. "You need tradition."
Kurt hooks his hand through Blaine’s crooked arm. "We make our own traditions."
Sebastian finally looks at him. Snorts. "That’s lame. For tradition to mean anything, it has to be old. Otherwise you’re making things up as you go along."
"And what’s the problem with that?" Kurt squeezes Blaine’s arm a little tighter.
"It can go horribly wrong." Sebastian grins, hard and insincere.
"Guys," Blaine murmurs, freeing his arm from Kurt’s grasp. "I’m just going to..." He gestures over towards Jeff, who’s distributing photocopied sheet music to the younger Warblers. His shoulders hunching with awkwardness, Blaine hurries away.
Kurt exhales.
"Still don’t like me, huh?" Sebastian rocks on his toes. The snow squeaks beneath his feet. "‘Tis the season for goodwill to all men. You should try it. Spread your goodwill around a bit. Share him under the mistletoe. Santa won’t stop by your house if you’re selfish, you know."
"You’re the selfish one." Kurt summons his hauteur. "And why am I not surprised that you still believe in Santa Claus?"
Sebastian clicks his tongue. "You need to try harder than that."
It’s not worth his while to fight. Kurt turns his head. "You’re pathetic."
Blaine comes back towards them, a few pages of music in his hand. "Later," Sebastian murmurs, and retreats with a creepy-fingered little wave.
"I really don’t like him," Kurt says in an undertone.
Blaine gives him a quick, smiling look. "I think he’s kind of intimidated by you."
Kurt snorts, but the thought pleases him. He’s not going to be charitable, though. "Well. He should be."
"I really don’t like the idea of two guys fighting over me," Blaine says, and though he looks amused there’s the suggestion in his eyes that he’s half serious. "Especially when one of them is my boyfriend."
Kurt turns on a brilliant smile. "What makes you think we were fighting over you?"
Blaine laughs. "Okay. My bad. Listen, d’you want to join us? We’re just about ready to start the songs."
"You go ahead." Kurt slides his hands into his pockets, refusing the pages Blaine holds out. "I’ll listen."
The Warblers line up, standing in a half-circle around the bonfire. Blaine takes his place in the middle, linking arms with Jeff and Trent. There’s a blank moment, a thrill of anticipation passing through the group as they look at each other, waiting to be led into the first song. The firelight illuminates their faces, picking out individuals, but when they sing they become one, and Kurt’s attention goes to the darkness behind them while their faces blur and merge in the foreground.
He listens to them sing, appreciates the beauty of their harmony. This is what he loved about Dalton. With distance, this is what he’s come to dislike about it. It’s what he hates about religion, too. The conformity, the sublimation of the individual to a mass. It’s all-encompassing, but in being embraced, he began to forget himself. What kept him safe also kept him locked in.
The voices spin and lift, rising like sparks into the night. At first Kurt tries to follow Blaine’s voice, but then he gives up and listens to the group as a whole. It’s better that way.
After a few songs, Blaine breaks free and comes over. They stand together and Kurt looks at him, sees Blaine gazing at the Warblers with a wistful expression. It hurts, almost, but Kurt understands it. He drops his own gaze and studies the flames, watching the branches split and burn in the heart of the fire.
"You miss it," he says.
Blaine nudges against him. "Yes."
"You miss them." Kurt can hear the ache in his words, in his voice, a voice that won’t be lost in a chorus, that won’t slide into anonymous obscurity.
"I do." Blaine looks at him then, and the fire is reflected in his eyes. "But I don’t regret it. Never think that I do."
Kurt inhales the winter. "I know you don’t." He takes Blaine’s hand, draws him away from the mellow warmth of the Warblers’ communal voice, and leads him through virgin snow into the darkness.
*
Kurt kneels on their outspread coats and takes Blaine’s cock deep into his mouth. The snow shifts and crunches beneath him. The woods are silent but for the cracking of frost in the air and Blaine’s desperate gasps and the wet, warm sound of sucking. Kurt creeps cold fingertips against the heat of Blaine’s thighs and is rewarded with an exclamation and a jerk of response. Blaine arches forward then thumps back against the tree trunk behind him. The branches rustle overhead in counterpoint.
Smiling, Kurt changes the rhythm, slows the pace, drawing out symphonies with his tongue. Blaine clutches at him, grabs at the tangle of Kurt’s scarf, pulls at his hair. "Kurt," he whispers, voice hitching and tumbling. "Oh God, Kurt. Please."
Kurt hums against him, hums the opening bars of the Wassailing song, but Blaine’s too far gone to notice and his applause is the hot, acrid spurt of semen and a gasping declaration of love.
Afterwards, they make a sort of nest of their coats in a scrape of snow and lay cuddled together, sharing warmth and conversation until they slip into a comfortable silence. They look up at the stars.
"See," Blaine murmurs, "I told you I’d take you stargazing."
Kurt snuffles with amusement and presses his cold nose against Blaine’s cheek. They share a kiss, as fleeting as frost, then settle again.
Blaine strokes along the line of Kurt’s jaw above the swaddling warmth of the scarf. "I love looking at the stars," he says. "I always feel safe when I see them. They’re like a fixed point of reference or something. They make me feel better."
Kurt stirs against him. "I was afraid of the night sky when I was child," he says, voice soft. "The great expanse of the unknown. It was terrifying. And then, as I got older, my perspective changed. Now I see only potential." He pauses. "Reach for the stars. It’s so cliché."
Blaine turns to face him. "No, it’s not. Why should you be earthbound? You should go up there and explore."
Kurt curls closer to him, stares up at the sky through the branches of the tree. "Maybe," he says. "Maybe one day soon."
---
Please consider spreading holiday cheer by commenting on and/or reblogging this fic! If you rec this fic, please be sure to attribute it to anonymous until the author/artist is revealed on January 3rd, 2011. Don’t forget to check out all of the other amazing works that will be posted throughout December!
Recipient: Fabrisse
Author: to be revealed January 3rd, 2012
Rating: R
Word Count: 3,114
Summary: The best relationships are about compromise, perspective, and a little faith (of some kind) that the future is written in the stars.
Notes: Huge thanks to glitterburn for doing more than I've ever asked a beta to do before.
earthbound, looking at the stars
"You have got to be joking."
The silence that follows Kurt’s outburst is broken by the rumble of a salt truck passing on the highway. Flecks of gravel spray across the frosted asphalt and ping against the bodywork of Blaine’s car. For a moment it sounds like rain, but the night sky is clear and the stars are hidden by nothing more than the glow of the streetlamps.
The heaters are on low. Too low. Kurt flexes his fingers. Maybe he shouldn’t have worn fingerless gloves, but he’d made the decision based on an entirely different set of parameters and it’s too late now. He curls his hands into fists; not because he’s angry, but because it’s one way of keeping them warm. He always feels cold when he’s not moving, even if, as in this instance, the only momentum comes from the car.
Blaine is gazing at him, face cast half into shadow, a line of sodium light striping over his cheekbone and curving into his chin. He laughs, the sound soft and patient. "Actually, it’s not a joke. I thought it’d be fun. I thought we’d have fun."
"Fun." Kurt gives him a look. "Blaine. When has the definition of ‘fun’ ever been ‘go wading through the snow over uneven ground at night in a creepy woodland accompanied by your ex-classmates’?"
Blaine chuckles. "It’s one of my definitions of fun. And we can’t exactly sit around watching The Sound of Music every night-"
"It’s a Christmas classic!"
"Yeah. It’s also kinda boring. Especially after the eighth time." Blaine gives him the hangdog look that for some reason always seems to work. "C’mon, Kurt," he says, wheedling. "It’s just one night. You were a Warbler, too. You were one of us. Them." He flashes a smile to cover the slip. "It’ll be fun."
Kurt lifts his shoulders within the tight confines of his coat. "You said this was going to be a romantic night of stargazing."
Blaine starts the car again. "We can still do that. The Dalton grounds are pretty extensive and are not, contrary to what freshmen are told, guarded by attack dogs. We can leave just as soon as you get bored. I promise."
"Yes, well-your promises seem to be rather flexible."
"Kurt..."
"Blaine." Kurt turns in his seat, looks at him full-on. "You lied to me."
Blaine laughs again, apologetic now, and he gives a sort of dismissive wave before he puts both hands on the wheel. "I just wanted us to have a bit of fun."
"Well, then..." Kurt pauses, reconsiders his options, then lifts a hand and dances his fingers along the back of the driver’s seat and onto Blaine’s shoulder. Blaine shivers at the touch. Pleased by the response, Kurt leans closer and lowers his voice. "Well, then, if it’s fun you want, why don’t we skip the boring part and go right to the main event? We don’t need to go all the way to the Dalton woods. We can just make out in the back seat. You have a thing for the back seat, don’t you?"
There’s a long pause. Blaine keeps his gaze fixed through the windshield. His hands grip the steering wheel. "I’d like to say I’m tempted, but..."
"Oh?" Kurt drops his caress and raises his eyebrows. "You don’t want to get down in the back seat with me?"
"You know I do." Blaine looks over, bites his lip. "I would, too, but... this is the 33 and it’s kinda busy, and if we get busy then..."
"Fine." Kurt lifts his chin and sits up straight, the very model of decorum. "I wasn’t suggesting we do anything right here and now."
Blaine makes a soft noise that might be a sigh. "Look, we’re closer to Westerville than we are to Lima, so why don’t we just go for a little while?"
Kurt closes his eyes briefly. "Please don’t say I might just enjoy it. If you say that, I’ll get out and walk home."
"No, you won’t." Blaine gives him an indulgent look then glances down to where Kurt’s long legs are folded in the footwell. "You’re wearing new boots. You walk more than a hundred yards in those things and you’ll get blisters."
Kurt huffs and turns his head to look out of the window. "I didn’t think you’d noticed."
Blaine leans across as far as the seatbelt will allow. His voice is warm and ticklish against Kurt’s cheek when he says, "I noticed."
*
They park up on the side of Dalton’s gravel-strewn driveway. Blaine kills the lights, turns off the engine, and they sit in silence for a moment, listening to the tick of cooling metal.
Kurt takes a breath. "So let me get this straight. At this time of year the Warblers become a cohort of neo-pagans, and you expect me to tag along with you to the creepy Dalton woods, at midnight, in the snow, to share in what the fundamentalist Christian majority describes as goat sacrifice and witchcraft?"
"I told you, it’s nothing more than a Wassailing party. Just an excuse to drink spiced cider around a bonfire." Blaine adjusts his old school scarf, his smile somewhere between incredulous and amused. "We drink, we sing, we jump on a few fallen logs while we dance around-it’s pretty much a normal Warbler get-together."
"Except for the bit where you sacrifice a goat."
"A straw goat," Blaine protests gently.
Kurt sniffs. "And chant a prayer."
"It’s just an old poem written by a Warbler back in the 1920s."
"I don’t do religion, Blaine, you know that. You need to respect that. Pagan rituals, whether intended or not, still means a bunch of crazy people calling on a non-existent higher power."
Blaine looks at him. "This isn’t about church, Kurt. It’s about tradition."
"Church is tradition."
"So’s atheism." The words hang between them, then Blaine tugs at the door handle and the interior light flashes on.
"It’s not the same!" Kurt wriggles free of his seatbelt and gets out of the car before Blaine can open the door for him. He’s struggling with the need to express himself; he doesn’t want any of Blaine’s distractions while he tries to fit words to his emotions. "I don’t want to come across as bitchy..."
"You don’t," Blaine assures him, tucking Kurt’s scarf into his coat.
Kurt had spent ten minutes arranging the scarf so it folded in casual disarray, an invitation to touch and unravel. He doesn’t want it tucked neatly inside his coat like he’s a child. He bats at Blaine’s hands, pulls at the scarf. "I suppose I sound insecure."
Blaine leans back, regarding him with easy affection. "Nope."
"Then do you understand why I don’t feel comfortable with this whole experience?"
Blaine considers. Shakes his head. "No. But it doesn’t matter, because I respect your choices just as you respect mine." He sweeps his arm wide, gestures to the quiet expanse of Dalton’s lawns and the dark tangle of woodland beyond. "Come on. It’s really not as bad as you think."
Kurt summons a bright smile. "That’s what they always say."
*
He’s determined to make the most of this, even if he has to make the situation fit his own standards. It’s not that he asks for the impossible; it’s more that he has certain expectations, and it’s hard, sometimes, to swing those expectations around to fit with reality. Kurt knows, and not even in a deep down way, that romantic relationships are not as fraught or as wildly passionate as they are in musicals. Love on stage lasts for two and a half hours, plus intermission; its depth is measured in the twist of its lyrics and in the work of octaves.
A real life relationship is both better and worse. It’s taking him a while to adjust to the idea that he and Blaine might be a four-minute country ballad rather than the Nibelungen, and it’s even more of an adjustment to realise that it doesn’t matter. They have each other and they have now, and that’s what’s important.
As they trudge through the tide of snow reaching across the Dalton lawns, they swing their clasped hands and giggle, breath steaming and drifting to cloud around their heads. Kurt keeps his back to the solid, square shape of the school behind him. He prefers the illusion that they’re out for their romantic stroll in the moonlight.
The truth is, Dalton makes him feel adrift. It used to be a haven, a perfect enclosed little sanctuary where he could be accepted and petted, but then he grew up and he needed something more than to be a cog in a wheel, a brick in a wall. It sounds stupid, and he doesn’t think he can explain it to Blaine, who needed Dalton-who still needs Dalton-for the same reason that Kurt doesn’t want it. McKinley is dysfunctional beyond belief and a sad indictment of the No Child Left Behind policy, but there’s a kind of freedom in the dysfunction. Making something from nothing, like when an old person says they had to make their own entertainment when they were young, when all they had for Christmas was a piece of string and a rubber band.
Blaine pulls in one direction, heading towards a scuffed set of multiple prints left in the snow. Kurt lets his hand slip free and stands for a moment on the edge of the lawn, looking up at the stars. Then he notices the tree, black-fingered against the deep, dark midnight blue. He goes closer. The snow covers rises and troughs, and he wades through the drifts, the chill catching above the line of his boots, just below his knees. But it’s important that he reaches the tree, so he ignores the cold and the damp creeping through the fabric of his pants, and finally he’s there, almost giddy with exertion, breath fogging in front of him.
"Hello, Pavarotti," he says softly, as soft as the snowflakes that shiver down from the bare branches. He stands there in silence, thinking of the living bird in its cage, the dead bird in its gilded casket, and he’s overwhelmed with something that feels almost like sadness, but at the same time he feels glad.
He wonders if this is schadenfreude, but that doesn’t feel right, either.
Blaine shuffles through the snow behind him, puts a mittened hand on his shoulder. "Hey."
Kurt turns and manages a smile. "I’m cold. Point me in the direction of the bonfire and the cheap cider."
*
Sebastian is at the Wassailing. Of course he is; there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be, but Kurt had hoped-wildly, foolishly-that this sort of gathering would be beneath him. But then Kurt realises that the combination of alcohol and deserted woodland and Christmas cheer and camaraderie could lead to certain inevitabilities, not just for the curious but also for those who had never before felt the need to question their sexuality. And it stands to reason that Sebastian, shark that he is, snake that he is, would want to be on hand, as it were, to take full advantage of any such confusion.
Also, Kurt reminds himself, Sebastian probably figured that Blaine would be here, and Sebastian wouldn’t miss an opportunity for flirtation. If you could call that flirting. More like unsubtle seduction. The sledgehammer approach to sex. Ugh.
Blaine glances over. "You okay?"
"I’m fine," Kurt says. "Why?"
A furrow appears between Blaine’s eyebrows. "Nothing. Only, you’re sort of crushing my hand."
"Oh." Kurt lets go just as they step from the darkness into the circle of light cast by the bonfire. The flickering glow makes everyone look demonic, changes cries of welcome into hellish whoops, and then Sebastian is there in front of them, blocking the way to the warmth of the fire.
"Hey," Sebastian says, ignoring Kurt and fixing Blaine with a hot-eyed look. "I’m so glad you could make it. Wouldn’t be a party without you."
Blaine gives a self-conscious laugh. "The Wassailing Warblers are a legend. Of course I was going to be here."
"Great. You need some class at this time of year." Sebastian’s gaze is insolent and invasive, flicking up and down Blaine’s body. "You need tradition."
Kurt hooks his hand through Blaine’s crooked arm. "We make our own traditions."
Sebastian finally looks at him. Snorts. "That’s lame. For tradition to mean anything, it has to be old. Otherwise you’re making things up as you go along."
"And what’s the problem with that?" Kurt squeezes Blaine’s arm a little tighter.
"It can go horribly wrong." Sebastian grins, hard and insincere.
"Guys," Blaine murmurs, freeing his arm from Kurt’s grasp. "I’m just going to..." He gestures over towards Jeff, who’s distributing photocopied sheet music to the younger Warblers. His shoulders hunching with awkwardness, Blaine hurries away.
Kurt exhales.
"Still don’t like me, huh?" Sebastian rocks on his toes. The snow squeaks beneath his feet. "‘Tis the season for goodwill to all men. You should try it. Spread your goodwill around a bit. Share him under the mistletoe. Santa won’t stop by your house if you’re selfish, you know."
"You’re the selfish one." Kurt summons his hauteur. "And why am I not surprised that you still believe in Santa Claus?"
Sebastian clicks his tongue. "You need to try harder than that."
It’s not worth his while to fight. Kurt turns his head. "You’re pathetic."
Blaine comes back towards them, a few pages of music in his hand. "Later," Sebastian murmurs, and retreats with a creepy-fingered little wave.
"I really don’t like him," Kurt says in an undertone.
Blaine gives him a quick, smiling look. "I think he’s kind of intimidated by you."
Kurt snorts, but the thought pleases him. He’s not going to be charitable, though. "Well. He should be."
"I really don’t like the idea of two guys fighting over me," Blaine says, and though he looks amused there’s the suggestion in his eyes that he’s half serious. "Especially when one of them is my boyfriend."
Kurt turns on a brilliant smile. "What makes you think we were fighting over you?"
Blaine laughs. "Okay. My bad. Listen, d’you want to join us? We’re just about ready to start the songs."
"You go ahead." Kurt slides his hands into his pockets, refusing the pages Blaine holds out. "I’ll listen."
The Warblers line up, standing in a half-circle around the bonfire. Blaine takes his place in the middle, linking arms with Jeff and Trent. There’s a blank moment, a thrill of anticipation passing through the group as they look at each other, waiting to be led into the first song. The firelight illuminates their faces, picking out individuals, but when they sing they become one, and Kurt’s attention goes to the darkness behind them while their faces blur and merge in the foreground.
He listens to them sing, appreciates the beauty of their harmony. This is what he loved about Dalton. With distance, this is what he’s come to dislike about it. It’s what he hates about religion, too. The conformity, the sublimation of the individual to a mass. It’s all-encompassing, but in being embraced, he began to forget himself. What kept him safe also kept him locked in.
The voices spin and lift, rising like sparks into the night. At first Kurt tries to follow Blaine’s voice, but then he gives up and listens to the group as a whole. It’s better that way.
After a few songs, Blaine breaks free and comes over. They stand together and Kurt looks at him, sees Blaine gazing at the Warblers with a wistful expression. It hurts, almost, but Kurt understands it. He drops his own gaze and studies the flames, watching the branches split and burn in the heart of the fire.
"You miss it," he says.
Blaine nudges against him. "Yes."
"You miss them." Kurt can hear the ache in his words, in his voice, a voice that won’t be lost in a chorus, that won’t slide into anonymous obscurity.
"I do." Blaine looks at him then, and the fire is reflected in his eyes. "But I don’t regret it. Never think that I do."
Kurt inhales the winter. "I know you don’t." He takes Blaine’s hand, draws him away from the mellow warmth of the Warblers’ communal voice, and leads him through virgin snow into the darkness.
*
Kurt kneels on their outspread coats and takes Blaine’s cock deep into his mouth. The snow shifts and crunches beneath him. The woods are silent but for the cracking of frost in the air and Blaine’s desperate gasps and the wet, warm sound of sucking. Kurt creeps cold fingertips against the heat of Blaine’s thighs and is rewarded with an exclamation and a jerk of response. Blaine arches forward then thumps back against the tree trunk behind him. The branches rustle overhead in counterpoint.
Smiling, Kurt changes the rhythm, slows the pace, drawing out symphonies with his tongue. Blaine clutches at him, grabs at the tangle of Kurt’s scarf, pulls at his hair. "Kurt," he whispers, voice hitching and tumbling. "Oh God, Kurt. Please."
Kurt hums against him, hums the opening bars of the Wassailing song, but Blaine’s too far gone to notice and his applause is the hot, acrid spurt of semen and a gasping declaration of love.
Afterwards, they make a sort of nest of their coats in a scrape of snow and lay cuddled together, sharing warmth and conversation until they slip into a comfortable silence. They look up at the stars.
"See," Blaine murmurs, "I told you I’d take you stargazing."
Kurt snuffles with amusement and presses his cold nose against Blaine’s cheek. They share a kiss, as fleeting as frost, then settle again.
Blaine strokes along the line of Kurt’s jaw above the swaddling warmth of the scarf. "I love looking at the stars," he says. "I always feel safe when I see them. They’re like a fixed point of reference or something. They make me feel better."
Kurt stirs against him. "I was afraid of the night sky when I was child," he says, voice soft. "The great expanse of the unknown. It was terrifying. And then, as I got older, my perspective changed. Now I see only potential." He pauses. "Reach for the stars. It’s so cliché."
Blaine turns to face him. "No, it’s not. Why should you be earthbound? You should go up there and explore."
Kurt curls closer to him, stares up at the sky through the branches of the tree. "Maybe," he says. "Maybe one day soon."
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Please consider spreading holiday cheer by commenting on and/or reblogging this fic! If you rec this fic, please be sure to attribute it to anonymous until the author/artist is revealed on January 3rd, 2011. Don’t forget to check out all of the other amazing works that will be posted throughout December!