The Alcoholic Rebellion of Blaine Anderson.
Rating: R
Pairing: Klaine
Spoilers: Up to and including 3x05
Warnings: Underage drinking
Summary: Five times Blaine Anderson had a different drink and the five different emotions they gave him.
First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.
-Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
Vodka.
It’s usually the tequila that makes people slutty. He’s tried the tequila that Brittany is drinking. He’s pretty sure it would just make him black out.
He’s sure he’ll be safe with vodka. The one useful thing his father has told him is not to mix his alcohol. So he sticks to vodka and various types of soda. It’s awesome and delicious and barely tastes like alcohol at all.
Blaine’s not really sheltered, per se. He’s grown up too fast - a clear result of a Sadie Hawkins dance gone wrong, decidedly Country Club parents and a private school mentality. Until tonight, he’s never really let himself go. And guess what? Maybe he should do it more often, because even though more than half of the people at this party are plastered and hate each other, they all seem to take to him well enough. In this drunken haze of stripping dancers, disco balls and a mint-green grandma nightgown, he’s found a strange kind of acceptance.
And maybe he’s finding out a bit about himself. Like that drinking is way more fun than it sounds, and that he totally wants a karaoke machine.
Also, he really likes kissing. In fact, he loves it. So what if it’s with a girl? Lips are lips. Lips are fucking wonderful. They’re so soft and sexy and they taste amazing.
He hasn’t seen Kurt in a while, but that’s okay, because Kurt’s missed his friends. Blaine has a feeling that if he’d left this group of people behind, he’d miss them too. It’s fine. It’s all fine. It’s all fine because he’s buzzing and he’s kissed someone finally and God, he just loves eighties music.
When he sees Kurt again, he doesn’t notice Kurt’s expression because he’s too busy staring at Kurt’s painted on jeans. Blaine doesn’t live on Mars. He knows Kurt’s attractive. He could be a model one day, with that frosty expression and those legs that stretch for miles.
But he’s never thought of Kurt sexy on an innately subjective and personal level before. As much as it should freak him out, it doesn’t. He’s learning all sorts of things tonight, and he’s quite happy to add Kurt’s ass to the list of things he’s realised he loves.
Blaine’s dozy on the car ride home. He’s got a dopey smile on his face. His hands touch his still-tingling lips and he’s humming along to Kurt’s playlist of showtunes. Kurt’s silence should be icy cold, but to Blaine, it’s just a reason to mumble and hum more because, hey, life’s too short not to express yourself, right?
It’s when he’s lying on Kurt’s bed that everything starts to become problematic. Kurt’s shuffling around nervously, talking about how he wishes he had a couch like in his old basement and why is the world so cruel as to make him sleep on the floor when he’s had a night like he has?
“Hey. Kurt. Hey. Your bed is amaaazing. It feels like a cloud. Am I on cloud nine, Kurt? Is that why your bed is so comfortable and I’m so happy?”
“Well I’m glad you’re happy. I wish I could find a spot on my floor that will make my back as happy as the vodka made you.”
“Your floor? Why would you sleep there? That’s stupid, Kurt. This is a double bed. Just get in with me.”
“I can’t do that, Blaine.”
“Uh yeah. You can. You just have to climb up here, see? And if you don’t, I’ll just fall off this bed and never get back up. Do you really want me doing that, Kurt Hummel? Would you do that to your best friend?”
“No. I’d never intentionally hurt someone who’s so important to me.”
Blaine’s too drunk to hear the bite in Kurt’s tone.
As soon as Kurt’s beside him, Blaine feels warm and safe and stupidly distracted with how pretty Kurt is. His lips are a dark pink; probably from the way he bites his tongue. His muscles are tense and defined. His hair has softened out of its hairspray hold. He looks phenomenal in the lamplight, and Blaine can’t help but inch toward those beautiful lips.
Because he loves lips.
“Blaine. Don’t. If you don’t want to screw this up, just…lie on your side of the bed and stay still.”
“But Kurt, your lips-”
“My lips are yours to take when you’re sober and willing. Just please don’t do this to me tonight. I’ve had enough.”
Kurt’s eyes are glistening and sad and they remind Blaine of that really depressing kitten video he once saw on Youtube, so he smiles softly at Kurt and turns away, passing out before he can hear Kurt’s quiet sobs.
The next day, he remembers as far as the press of female lips that tasted like wine coolers.
Beer.
“I’m sorry for trying to be spontaneous and fun.”
Halfway through a very cold and lonely walk home, Blaine Anderson is sobering up. He’s also coming to terms with how much he really kind of hates himself. There’s a pounding in his head already, and his hands are shaking with emotion.
“Either you can’t tell or you just don’t care.”
It’s always been an ugly drink to him. He’s in high school. He knows that guys usually turn into absolute assholes after a few red cups of cheap beer. To be honest, it conjures up images of beefy guys watching a football game and calling the players fags and pussies. It’s still very much a heterosexual, homophobic drink to him. But he figures maybe it’ll be different in the gay bar. Maybe the blatant acceptance of the place will help.
He was going to limit himself. He really was. He never had any intention of getting beyond tipsy - especially not as the third wheel in a very passive-aggressive sort of night. But hey, he figured he’s not his father and he’s definitely not his brother, so beer probably wouldn’t even affect him similarly anyway. Besides, the last time he’d had too much to drink, he’d just ended up kissing a few people too many. It was a far cry from the violence and screaming realities of his Sadie Hawkins Experience, polluted with the stench of beer and sweat.
It was fun at first. There were awesome purple lights and retro music and actually other gay people in Ohio that even dressed up as drag queens. So okay, Sebastian had been a little awkward but whatever. Hanging out with Rachel in a gay bar would be awkward too so he didn’t think too much of it.
And then Kurt had started dancing and Blaine just wanted to love every single bit of him because his boyfriend is just fucking adorable when he dances. And he swore that the only thing he wanted to do was love Kurt in any and every way he could.
He figured he’d turned into a harmless slutty drunk again.
Until he was proven wrong.
“It’s about us.”
It’s kind of terrifying, the feeling of being absolutely, helplessly angry. He hasn’t had that much to drink - it’s less than when he made the absolutely stellar decision to make out with Rachel Berry - so there’s still a part of him screaming at himself to shut the fuck up and back off because Kurt is right and precious and the only thing in his life that he can say he’s proud of. But his hands still clench and his brows furrow in agitation because he’s frustrated with the border restrictions on his physical relationship. He can’t control it. His body bristles with anger and sexual frustration and he’s forced to make the walk home because if he doesn’t, he’s terrified of what he might say or do.
He’s never, not once, thought he’d be That Guy. He’s made sure that ever since he and Kurt started dating not to do anything to screw this up. And he’s tried so hard. He’s pushed himself with big romantic gestures and prom and with taking things slower than his body wants to all because he absolutely loves Kurt. So much that his heart feels like it’s literally going to shatter with the pressure of it sometimes.
Yet here he is, somewhere just past Lima Heights Adjacent, pretending that Kurt’s not following him in the Navigator and realising that beer makes him into the same asshole as it does all other guys.
His father would be so proud.
Whiskey
So maybe he has a problem by now. There’s a bottle of his father’s finest whiskey sitting in front of him (the man will probably barely notice, for all the time he spends in the cellar) and his tongue itches for the burn of it. His father has always told him never to drink alone - it’s pathetic and weak and it will only end in alcoholism.
But Kurt’s still not picking up his phone and Blaine just wants to forget. Just for a night. Just so he can sleep for a night and not wake up with tears on his face and bags the size of Jupiter under his eyes.
The first taste leaves a blaze in its wake. Blaine has never understood the draw of whiskey. It tastes like lighter fluid probably would and it makes him feel more like his father than he likes. Still, it’s the only alcohol he can get his hands on right now, and if drinking straight whiskey is good for anything, it’s numbing the parts of yourself that you don’t want to think about.
Like his broken heart. Like his stupid, stupid naïveté. Like his inability to not fuck up every good thing ever.
He’s not going to lie and say he thought Sebastian would be content to stay friends. He’s figured that eventually, maybe, the boy would get bored and move on. Or he’d make a pass and Blaine would just tell him no and that would be that. Blaine’s always been prepared to lose Sebastian as a friend. He’s never been prepared to lose Kurt. Not over something so stupid as a rumour.
And yeah, he knows now, because hindsight is always fucking twenty/twenty. He knows he should have just told Sebastian ‘no’ that first day at Dalton. Blaine’s not so oblivious to completely miss the point of being called sex-on-a-stick. But in his haste to befriend another gay guy in Ohio, he’d forgotten that just because a guy’s gay, it doesn’t mean he’s not a douchebag. It doesn’t mean he won’t start a rumour. It doesn’t mean he won’t hurt people.
He hates Sebastian. Not as much as he hates himself. At least Sebastian has been overt. Predictable. Hilariously so, at some points. But Blaine is always going to be that stupid guy. The guy that believes everything’s harmless until it punches you in the face. Sebastian had been harmless, once. That was before he attempted to hurt Kurt Hummel and blew everything up in smoke.
“I would never believe the rumours, Blaine. Do you think I don’t get that he’s as threatening to me as Ke$ha is to Gaga?”
“Then why-?”
“I’m not furious at him! I’m furious at you for continually being friends with someone that has wanted nothing but to hurt me and to tear us apart. I’m angry because he said some incredibly cruel things to me, but you’re still aggravatingly naïve about it. That boy is not your friend, Blaine! He’s an ass, and so are you for sticking by him when your relationship was at stake.”
The burn of the whiskey makes his eyes water. The words in his head shatter his heart, and before he knows it, he’s lying on the couch in a near-vegetative state, willing his mind not to whirl any faster.
His phone rings. Lady Gaga’s voice lets him know it’s Kurt.
He lets the phone ring out. He’ll only fuck everything up anyway.
Wine
Blaine kind of hates wine. It’s boring and it’s bitter and it gives him a headache before his third drink. He’s drinking it out of pure courtesy. And fear. Kind of. His grandmother doesn’t exactly move like a ninja, but she has a glare that would probably shoot laser beams. If Blaine ever said ‘no’ to her, she would probably whack him in the face with a candlestick.
He refuses to get drunk tonight. He might say the word ‘gay’ and end up dead.
It’s extremely hard not to just chug the bottle, though, because the family discussion turns very quickly to Bill O’Reilly. His parents are that bad. They’re far from Fox News junkies, but his grandmother could wave a Nazi Flag along with her Tea Party one and Blaine wouldn’t bat an eyelid in surprise. He kind of wants to tell her about Rachel and her two Jewish, Gay dads, but Blaine’s father has already shot at least seven warning looks in his direction, and the grounding really isn’t worth it.
So instead, he fixes his eyes on his dinner and takes larger gulps of his wine than he should. His grandmother doesn’t notice. She’s barely looked at him once since that time when he was fourteen and he turned up to the Fourth of July dinner in red jeans.
After the butler tops up his fourth glass (he can’t wait for the lecture he’ll get about binge drinking later on), his phone vibrates. Blaine knows it’s Kurt. It’s just past nine o-clock and Kurt’s probably found a reason to hiss at one of the girls on America’s Next Top Model. He knows Blaine is at his grandmother’s, but he’s texting anyway, so that when Blaine gets home in a rage, he can at least have a laugh at Kurt’s bitching.
But he’s not raging at all. He used to get so worked up about his family’s right-wing views. He used to scream and cry and lie awake at night tossing and turning. He used to hope one day they would change. But he’s long realised that it’s not going to happen.
Instead, he just dreams of New York. Of Broadway. Flashing lights. Billboards. Yellow taxis. And most of all, walking down the street hand-in-hand with the love of his life. Kisses in Central Park. A surprise date outside Tiffany’s. He can’t wait for all of it. And maybe it’s the wine, but he’s never seen his future clearer than right now in this insipid dining room. He’s never had a daydream so clear, so almost tangible. In all the times he’s contemplated getting away from his family, he’s never believed it more than now.
When his grandmother snaps at him to put his phone away, he just nods politely and apologises for Harvard being so rude and emailing him during family time.
Champagne
Kurt tries to refuse Carole’s clandestine gift.
“It’s really very sweet, Carole, but we’re just not into drinking.”
And it would have been fine with Blaine if they remained alcohol-less upon moving into their shared apartment in New York. Blaine’s sworn off drinking because frankly, he feels like an asshole every time he does it. Kurt is still reeling from BambiGate.
Except that’s a hundred dollar bottle of fine champagne, and Carole’s face is falling rapidly in a very heartbreaking way.
“Don’t mind him, Carole. He’ll get over puking on Ms Pillsbury’s shoes as soon as we’ve moved states.” Blaine winks and put a hand to the bottle. “Thankyou, really. We’re very grateful.”
“It’s no problem, boys.” She says, tearing up. “Just hide it before Burt gets in. I’ll tell him the hundred dollars went towards those last-season designer shoes that actually cost me forty dollars in the thrift store.”
And that’s how Kurt and Blaine end up giggling like a pair of twelve year olds on their new red sofa (which surprisingly well-priced for being Kurt’s choice).
“I love you like I love America’s Next Top Model.”
“I love you like I love the Bee Gees.”
“I love you like I love movie posters from the Fifties.”
“I love you like I love PB and J sandwiches.”
“Blaine…”
“What? My mom used to make them all the time when I was a kid. When I taste them now, it’s like being pulled into a really, really tight warm hug where I was just little Blaine. With no labels.”
And there’s enough in that justification for Kurt to smile that way he does just before his eyes overflow with tears of love.
“Well then. I love you like I love baking. Especially my lemon cupcakes. I love you like I love my lemon cupcakes!”
“Kiiiinky.”
They laugh some more, knocking the empty bottle over and tipping their celebratory pizza dangerously close to the edge of the table.
“I think I’ve finally found an alcoholic drink that I like on you.” Kurt says, an appraising eye sweeping over Blaine. It makes him blush and stutter like an awkward teenager. “Champagne seems to make you happy. It’s a good look.”
“Yeah, well,” Blaine leans towards Kurt’s ear, his mouth just a breath away from Kurt’s rapidly flushing skin. “New York’s a good look on you.” He licks the outer shell of Kurt’s ear playfully, ducking backwards to avoid a particularly vicious whack from a shaggy throw pillow.
“I think I need more champagne to deal with you. Have we got any more?”
They make their way through a four-dollar bottle that Puck gifted them (along with six boxes of condoms and a ridiculous rainbow dildo that neither of them quite knew was sanitary for actual use). The drink is hardly as smooth as the bottle Carole gave them, and its bitterness makes Kurt’s lips pucker in distaste, but they both like the high they’re floating on too much to stop drinking.
After another round of verbal competition (“I love you like I love hats”, “I love you like I love scarves and you can never repeat that to anybody because oh my God I’ve been denying Finn that level of love for years”), Blaine settles back into his seat properly and stares at Kurt like he does a lot.
You know the stare. The one where he’s looking at his entire world and he just wants to love.
“It’s not the champagne that makes me happy, Kurt.”
“Hmm?”
“The champagne makes me stupid. You make me happy. You and your heart and your hands and your eyes and your co-”
“I think I know where this is going.”
“Do you? Because the champagne is kind of ridding me of control. Slowly. And your legs Kurt, Oh my God.”
Kurt turns to him with possibly the sexiest expression that Blaine’s ever seen ever on anyone. “So I think our bed’s kind of missed us. And we never really got to put it to full use with all those Hummel-Hudsons around.”
“Are you propositioning sex? Please be propositioning sex.”
“Just get into the bedroom, Blaine, and I’ll show you.”
---
Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
-Ernest Hemingway