Five Ways that Blaine Could Have Met Kurt because Cooper Got Married, and What Really Happened (5/6)
Title: Five Ways that Blaine Could Have Met Kurt because Cooper Got Married, and What Really Happened
Rating: Ranging from G to R/NC-17 (depending on how carried away I get in later chapters)
Pairings: Klaine, Cooper/OFC
Word Count: 4,089 this chapter / 21,928 total (so far)
Spoilers: Anything through the end of S3 may be mentioned
Warnings: None that I can think of. It's a little cracky?
Summary: It's exactly what the title says. :)
Author's Notes: Many thanks to my wonderful beta shandyall! Special thanks to icedwhitemochas for doing a pinch-hit beta on this chapter, since colfer is out meeting Chris Colfer. If you're so inclined, feel free to come say hi on Tumblr over here.
Part One: It could have been at a bakery.
Part Two: Or maybe at a salon.
Part Three: Perhaps at the church.
Part Four: Or through the lens of a camera.
Blaine first sees him when he and the maid of honor are walking giddily back up the aisle after the ceremony is over. He’s sitting on the bride’s side next to a pretty young woman with short, dark hair. They have to keep moving - which is probably good, because it means that Blaine can’t stop and try to get a better look - but he does get the vague impression of an impeccable suit and hairstyle, pale skin, and a handsome face.
The same stranger always seems to be at the edges of Blaine’s vision at the garden reception, or maybe Blaine keeps making sure he’s there on purpose. He’s taller than Blaine is, and he’s long and lean and he stays near the woman he was sitting beside in the church. Sometimes it’s just the two of them and sometimes they’re in a group of other people, but either way, it looks like he’s got a girlfriend. Which is unfortunate, really, but it doesn’t mean that Blaine can’t look. And listen, the one time he gets close enough to hear the other man. They’re standing almost back-to-back near the fountain, and Blaine overhears his voice - it’s surprisingly high and clear, but Blaine likes it - and, even better or maybe even worse, his laugh.
At dinner, Blaine has a perfect view of the man’s profile. He’s sitting three tables up and two tables over with the same woman and a table full of Emily’s family. He eats the chicken and chats politely.
Finally, the reception is in full swing and everything that Blaine considered a responsibility has been disposed of. He’s enjoying himself, but the temperature in the room seems to be rising, especially now that he’s spent the past two songs dancing Emily’s nieces around the floor on his feet, so he happily escapes to the bar to find something to drink. He strips his jacket off when he gets close - surely, Emily can’t be mad if he takes it off now.
Blaine has only just reached the bar when he hears a clear voice at his side. When he turns, the man he’s been watching all day is standing there, leaning nonchalantly next to an empty glass, and unless Blaine is imagining things, he just said, “Can I buy you a drink?”
His first reaction is surprise, because that certainly doesn’t seem like something that a straight man with a girlfriend with say. His next instinct is to blurt out that he’s not twenty-one yet (no don’t say that), but he manages to hold the words in. Cooper’s friend Andy is bartending, and Blaine suspects that he’s going to be fairly lenient, whether it’s a good idea or not.
It isn’t until the other man starts babbling that Blaine realizes that he hasn’t answered yet - or reacted at all, really, other than staring at him with his jaw slackened. “Oh god,” the man is saying, “that probably sounded like such a line. I’m sorry. Just forget I said anything. I’m sorry. Really. Especially for the bad pickup line.” So… definitely not straight, then.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Blaine manages to get out, afraid that the man is going to leave if he doesn’t say something.
He pauses. “No?”
“No. In fact, I think you can do worse.” Blaine feels his own eyebrows arch up as he watches the other man’s do the same. Where did that come from? He’d led a toast with a glass of champagne before dinner, but that really wasn’t enough of an excuse.
“Oh?” The man is looking at him with evident surprise, but Blaine is almost certain that he can see something like playfulness creeping into his expression.
It only spurs Blaine on. “I only accept drinks from people who use the worst pickup lines possible,” he says airily.
The man stares at him for a minute longer, and then he’s grinning a little as he props his chin on his hand and bats his eyelashes at Blaine. “So, what’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?”
Blaine chuckles. “Nope, that wasn’t very bad either. Plus,” he points at his boutonniere, “it’s obvious why I’m here. My brother’s getting married.”
The stranger rolls his eyes, but his annoyance seems teasing, not genuine. “Okay, fine. Show me what you’ve got.”
“What?” Blaine asks incredulously. He hadn’t been expecting a line that was quite so bold.
“Hit me with a bad pickup line. Apparently I need a practical demonstration.”
Oh. Blaine considers for a moment, and then - sending up a silent prayer of thanks for the guy who lived two doors down in his freshman dorm, the one with the strange sense of humor - leans forward and smiles. “Excuse me, sir, do you mind stepping away from the bar?”
His forehead crinkles. “Why?”
It occurs to Blaine suddenly that he hadn’t considered actually saying the next part, but there’s no backing out now. He can feel his face flushing and his heart thudding as he says, “You’re so hot you’re melting all the ice.”
The man reddens as well, but he snorts out a laugh at the same time. “That is terrible.”
“I know!”
“If the worst pickup line loses, maybe you should be buying me a drink.”
“I’m not opposed to that.” He sticks out his hand. “I’m Blaine, by the way.”
“Kurt,” the man says, giving his hand a firm shake, and his skin feels good against Blaine’s, warm and just the slightest bit damp.
“And you… must know Emily?” Blaine asks.
“I don’t, actually. Her cousin is a good friend of mine, and she didn’t have a date, so she asked me to come along.” He signals for Andy. “I do enjoy a good wedding, and this one has certainly been entertaining.”
Blaine thinks back over the more colorful elements of the day and just barely manages to refrain from rolling his eyes. “Well, that’s Cooper for you.”
When Andy makes his way over, Blaine has a brief flare of panic that he’s going to expose him for the underage fraud that he is, but Andy just says, “What can I get you? Full bar.” He gives Blaine a conspiratorial look.
“Oh. Um, just a beer is fine,” Blaine says.
Andy nods. “You like pale ales, right?”
Blaine doesn’t have a lot of experience in picking and choosing his drinks, so he shrugs. “Sure.”
“And a refill on the vodka tonic for you?”
That question is addressed to Kurt, and he nods while Blaine fumbles his wallet out of his pocket. “I’ve got both.”
“Sounds good,” Andy says with a wink, and it makes Blaine squirm a little.
When he turns back to Kurt, Blaine’s surprised to find him giving small shakes his head as he watches Andy work. “He’s going to get either this place or your brother in trouble,” he mumbles. “And himself, for that matter.”
“Huh?” Blaine asks, and then wishes instantly that he’d phrased his question a bit more eloquently.
“I’m only twenty,” Kurt confesses in a low voice. “See Linda over there?” He points to a table across the room, and Blaine sees a middle-aged woman in the blue, who he’s pretty sure is one of Emily’s aunts. “Apparently, she’s my legal guardian. That’s what she told him when she ordered the first one, anyway, and the bartender didn’t even question it.”
“Oh. He probably wouldn’t. That’s Andy,” Blaine says. “He’s a friend of my brother’s.”
Kurt hums. “I suppose that explains it.” His demeanor shifts suddenly as Andy approaches with their drinks - Kurt straightens his spine and thanks him confidently.
Blaine watches dumbly as Kurt takes a drink, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. “I’m only nineteen,” he admits, as much to distract himself as anything else.
There’s definitely a measure of surprise on Kurt’s face, but he shrugs. “I won’t tell if you won’t,” he says, and holds up his drink. “Cheers?”
“Cheers,” Blaine says, clinking their glasses together.
***
The next hour and a half pass so quickly that Blaine has a hard time believing it’s gone when he looks down at his watch. He’s just finished his second drink - a vodka tonic that he’d ordered after tasting Kurt’s. There had been something strangely erotic about sipping out of Kurt’s glass; his body had reacted like it was a euphemism for something, even though it wasn’t.
It turns out that they have a lot in common, which they discover over the course of a meandering conversation interrupted only by their continued attempts to out-pickup-line each other.
Kurt had earned the honor of buying their second set of drinks after they’d finished arguing the merits of the movie version of Rent. During a brief pause in their conversation, Kurt had suddenly exclaimed, “Oh! I thought of one.”
“One what?” Blaine asked, sure that he was in for another example of why the stage version would always be superior, which was a fact that he wasn’t even arguing.
Instead, Kurt had leaned over into his personal space and murmured, “You’d better lower your pitch because you’re looking awfully sharp.”
Blaine had laughed, trapped in the snare of Kurt’s sparkling eyes. “All right, that was awful. You’ve got the next round.”
“Really? Even though it was thematically appropriate?”
“To be honest, I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse.” Secretly, he’s mostly just impressed that Kurt can come up with the phrase thematically appropriate after two vodka tonics and a swallow or two of a third.
Things had only devolved from there, until Kurt had resorted to Googling pickup lines on his phone while they talked. They’re giggling over them while Blaine waits for Andy to make his way back to their end of the bar.
“Kiss me if I’m wrong, but isn’t your name Yolanda?” Kurt reads from the screen now, distracting Blaine from trying to get Andy’s attention by batting his eyelashes briefly before returning to his normal inflection. “I think that’s the PG version of that one, though.”
“I want to kiss you,” Blaine blurts out, and okay, it’s possible that the alcohol is starting to take its toll on the looseness of his tongue. He sucks in a breath, surprised again at his own boldness.
Kurt’s eyes shoot up to meet Blaine’s, and they’re startled, but darkening. “You can,” he says abruptly, and Blaine’s heart throws itself against his ribcage, “but not here.”
They glance surreptitiously around the room, and Blaine knows he’s right. He can pick out the handful of his family members that wouldn’t have a problem with it - Cooper and Emily among them, thank goodness - but he can also see many who wouldn’t. He doesn’t want to stereotype, but a lot of Emily’s family are from the Midwest, and he has no idea about them.
“We can find somewhere, maybe,” Blaine says lowly. He isn’t sure he’s of the right mind to be making the decision, but he does manage to get to his feet without much unsteadiness. It takes concentration, but he does it.
“Okay,” Kurt replies so quietly that it’s almost a whisper. Blaine only just has time to shrug into his jacket - he’s too afraid he’ll lose it otherwise - and then they’re heading quickly for the hallway.
Finding somewhere else proves to be much more difficult than Blaine had anticipated. It seems like they’re being thwarted at every turn. Blaine’s father is holding court just outside the entrance to the hotel bar, surrounded by a group of his business colleagues. Although they had reached a tentative truce on the topic of his sexuality years ago, Blaine still doesn’t think he’s quite prepared to either parade or sneak past him to find a place to make out with a guy who’d picked him up at Cooper’s wedding reception.
Next, they try the long hallway dotted with couches that leads to the hotel’s smaller ballroom. There they find Emily herself, taking a break from the noise and heat of the reception with a cluster of her friends. Kurt’s starting to grumble beside him when Blaine bursts out with, “I have a room!”
“A room?” Kurt asks, giving him a suspicious look.
“No!” Blaine’s eyes widen and he reaches out to squeeze Kurt’s bicep with one hand. He wants to reassure Kurt and it steadies his own feet. It also feels really good, wow. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just… it’s private. So we don’t have to worry. I really didn’t mean… that.” He’s trying to drill his sincerity home with his eyes, and he hopes suddenly that he’s not just giving Kurt a really creepy stare.
It can’t be too bad, because Kurt’s eyes soften a little and he smiles. “Okay. Lead the way.”
“Okay,” Blaine breathes. “There are stairs over - this way!”
When they’re safely behind a closed door, climbing quickly to the third floor, Kurt reaches over and takes his hand, squeezing it before lacing their fingers together.
***
Just inside the door, there’s an awkward pause marked by shuffling feet and darting eyes. They’re still standing in the entryway because Kurt hasn’t moved any further into the room. He’s right there and Blaine’s not sure - is he supposed to say something first? Does he just reach out and grab? He hasn’t so much as kissed anyone since the breakup, and even though it’s only been a few months, he feels completely out of his depth and he has no idea what to do.
But really, the second option sounds good, so that’s what he does.
Everything goes still when his hand closes around Kurt’s lapel - their bodies, just for a second, the air, maybe everything in the world, he doesn’t know. It doesn’t last long, because Blaine can’t make himself wait to pull forward, and when he does, Kurt comes easily. Blaine slumps back against the door; it makes Kurt taller and he has to bend down a little while Blaine tilts his chin up to kiss. Their lips brush briefly as they find the right alignment, and the first real press of them together is firm and a bit demanding. It make Blaine’s heart thunder in his chest and his hands tighten on Kurt - one still clutching his jacket and the other that has slid forward to find his Kurt’s waist.
Kurt leans back infinitesimally when they part and takes a quick, ragged breath, but Blaine has no time to collect himself before Kurt’s pushing back into him, kissing him surely again and again and again, pressing Blaine’s shoulders into the plastic plaque displaying the fire escape routes while he worms one arm behind Blaine’s lower back. The other is braced against the door above Blaine’s shoulder. When Kurt blankets him back into the door and works and licks his mouth open, Blaine lets it happen, goes along happily and willingly.
It just feels so good - maybe better than anything ever, or maybe he’s just forgotten, but it’s hard to think of anything else with his head spinning the way it is. Blaine’s afraid that he’s going to combust inside his rented tuxedo when Kurt’s mouth leaves his and starts a determined journey along his jawline, his tongue darting out to flick underneath. With a groan, Blaine lets his head fall back, where the edge of the peephole catches him sharply in the back of his skull.
“Owww,” he whines, bringing his head forward again and dislodging Kurt from his neck. He moves instead to kiss Blaine’s lips, which are caught between pouting and giggling.
“Are you okay?” Kurt mumbles against Blaine’s mouth. He raises the hand that was pressed against the door to cradle the back of Blaine’s head, and then he pauses and brushes the backs of his fingers against the peephole.
“Oh my god, did you hit your head on this? I’m so sorry!” Kurt’s voice is low and concerned, and he hasn’t moved more than an inch or two away.
“Doesn’t matter,” Blaine breathes, trying to find Kurt’s mouth again.
Kurt evades him. “No, that had to have hurt.” He’s petting softly over the back of Blaine’s hair now, and it feels much more amazing than it probably should. At the same time, he’s leaning forward like he’s going to be able to see around the back of Blaine’s head. It puts his neck right next to Blaine’s mouth, so he brushes his lips there languidly.
“You could kiss it better,” he whispers near Kurt’s ear.
“You want me to kiss the back of your head?” Kurt asks, his voice amused and breathless when Blaine presses his mouth up under the corner of his jaw.
“No.” Blaine says, does it again. “I want you to kiss me anywhere.”
Kurt huffs out a breath that sounds like something between a laugh and a whimper. “Okay,” he mumbles. He gathers Blaine up, spinning him to press him into the wall beside the door, but that doesn’t last long before a lightswitch or a thermostat or who knows what is digging into his back.
“Okay, okay,” Kurt says, pulling back as they both start laughing. “Somewhere else, then.”
And then it feels like all the air gets sucked out of the room as they both glance at the bed. Blaine turns nervously back to Kurt, and Kurt’s watching him. They both speak at once.
“We don’t have to -”
“It doesn’t mean -”
The words cut off abruptly, and they pause again, staring at each other. Blaine can’t help it; Kurt looks gorgeous with his face flushed and his lips parted to breathe, and then gathered in to smile tentatively. “Honestly, there’s no pressure, Blaine. We can even go back -”
“No,” Blaine cuts him off, because going back to the reception has to be the worst suggestion he’s heard in a long time.
“No?”
Blaine shakes his head and turns to walk farther into the room, grabbing Kurt’s hand in the process to tow him along behind. He stops at the foot of the bed and turns to face Kurt, stepping into his space. “Can I just kiss you a little more?”
“Please,” Kurt responds, and the word makes Blaine flare with heat as they rush back together, clutching harder than before.
Kurt’s arms are tight around Blaine’s back, and Blaine wrenches himself suddenly away. “Wait.”
“Wait?” Kurt asks, sounding dazed. “What? Oh, did I - I’m so sorry, I didn’t -”
“No!” Blaine exclaims. “My jacket.” He’s already yanking it off his shoulders. “I can’t disappear and then show up again with a wrinkled jacket. Cooper will know somehow and he’ll make me tell him everything.” Probably in the form of a dramatic monologue, he adds silently, and he is so not ready for that.
He doesn’t have to go far to drape the jacket over the desk chair, and when he turns around, Kurt is there, holding his out as well. “I don’t want to give you away,” he explains, and Blaine drapes the jacket over the chair with exaggerated care. Before he turns back to Kurt, he yanks off his tie and then freezes, looking down at his dress shirt, which is probably even more prone to creases than the jacket. He’s pretty sure it would send the wrong message to start stripping out of more clothes now - Blaine doesn’t intend to have sex with Kurt; he really doesn’t. But he does want to make out with him some more. Preferably on the bed, which is going to wrinkle his shirt.
Apparently, Kurt is on the same page, because his hand is firm on Blaine’s arm, angling him back around and - shoving a dress shirt into his grasp? Blaine glances up, dumfounded, to see Kurt standing beside him in nothing but his suit pants and a thin undershirt, the fabric molded around the firmness of his chest.
“These will wrinkle horribly,” Kurt said, his fingers oddly perfunctory as they start working the buttons at Blaine’s throat. Blaine chokes a little, which makes Kurt fumble in his ministrations. His hands hover for a moment, and then he slips them aside to press the palms into Blaine’s chest, warm through the cotton of his bottom layer. “Oh.”
“It’s okay,” Blaine whispers. He looks up at Kurt’s face as his hands start working again. “I didn’t ask you to come up here to - I don’t even want to - no! I don’t mean that. It’s not that I don’t want… but… oh god…”
Kurt pulls the tails of Blaine’s shirt out of his pants. “Blaine,” he says quietly, meeting his eyes again. “Relax. That’s not my intention either. But I wouldn’t mind being a little more comfortable.”
His eyes are bright and gentle, and Blaine feels some of the tension drain away. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Kurt repeats. He adds both shirts to the chair, and then he’s kissing Blaine again, and oh, his arms are bare from his shoulders to the tips of his fingers, and there’s so much skin that wasn’t touching before. Their shuffle toward the bed is clumsy, and once they’re there, Blaine is struck with horrible anxiety about how they’re supposed to actually get on the bed without it being weird. Kurt solves that problem easily by dropping right down and pulling Blaine along with him.
They kiss lying next to each other, deep and hard and long. Blaine can feel his hair getting messed up, but that he can fix. He doesn’t give it another thought, focuses on touching Kurt’s hair instead, along with his shoulders and his neck and his back. He doesn’t realize that they’ve scooted closer together until he surges forward and their hips - and everything in between - brush together. Blaine lets out a sharp moan, his body jerking forward almost of its own accord as his fingers tighten in Kurt’s hair.
Kurt gasps, and that’s enough to startle Blaine backwards. They both flop down onto their backs and stare hazily up at the ceiling, chests heaving. “I’m so sorry,” Blaine wheezes. Of course he’s hard - painfully so, and he’s pretty sure he started getting hard before they’d even made their way up to the hotel room - but this has all gone way too far. He’s suddenly, uncomfortably clear-headed, and he can’t help but feel ashamed. This isn’t the kind of person he is. He’d really enjoyed talking to Kurt, and he probably should have gone about this differently. No, he definitely should have.
“You don’t have to apologize,” Kurt replies with a gulp.
“Yes, I do.”
Kurt is silent for a moment before asking, “Would it help to know that I kept looking up those godawful pickup lines because I was working up the courage to ask you if I could put your number on my phone?”
No, Blaine thinks to himself, because that means that Kurt was going to do something sweet like ask for his number, and Blaine turned it into this. He lolls his head toward Kurt, says, “That’s - that’s really great, actually - but I don’t understand why that should make me feel better.”
“I wanted to ask you out,” Kurt says plainly. “I still want to ask you out.” He’s rolled his head in to face Blaine too, and they’re gazing at each other. Kurt even looks a little shy, despite his red cheeks, swollen lips, and disheveled hair. All of a sudden, he sits up and scrambles off the bed, heading straight for their jackets.
“Kurt…?” Blaine asks, propping himself up on an elbow. “What…?”
He’s back to the bed as quickly as he left it, climbing back up toward the headboard and tapping on his phone. “Okay, what’s your number?”
“Really?”
“Of course, really,” Kurt says, rolling his eyes. Blaine can’t help but smile, and he’s only too happy to oblige. Kurt fiddles with the screen a bit more after he’s got Blaine’s number saved, and Blaine hears his own phone vibrate a few seconds later. “There, now you have mine too,” Kurt announces, sounding satisfied.
“Thank you,” Blaine says, still grinning sheepishly.
“Now -” Kurt deposits his phone on the bedside table “- I wanted to ask you something else.”
“Oh?”
Kurt settles his chin on his hand and smirks. “If I said you have a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?”
Blaine lets out a bark of laughter and tugs happily on Kurt’s bare shoulder to bring him closer.
***
When Blaine checks his phone later, the text says: Do you like raisins? How about a date?
***
But even Blaine thinks that scenario might be a little far-fetched.
< Previous Chapter | Next Chapter >