Fic: Hail to Whatever You Found in the Sunlight That Surrounds You 3/12
Title: Hail to Whatever You Found in the Sunlight That Surrounds You
Author:
water_nix
Artist: tortugax
Word Count: 30 400
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Blaine/Kurt, Cooper, Mr. & Mrs. Anderson, Burt/Carole, minor OCs
Warnings: homophobia, mention of gaybashing and bullying, underage drinking
Summary: On the third of August in Blaine Anderson's ninth year, something momentous happens: he sees a boy crying on the beach and decides to do something about it. What he gets in return is a best friend, a confidant, an ally to help him through the ups and downs. They spend one month together every summer. One perfect month until they are old enough to escape together. Eleven Augusts and the letters in between.
Eleven - August 2005: The Summer When Cousin Stacy is a Bitch
It starts with a man on the beach. The man is minding his own business, reading a thick, hardcover novel while lying under a colourful umbrella.
Kurt's fourteen year old cousin, Stacy, has tagged along with them, even though all she does is roll her eyes and shush them when they speak in even the most hushed voices. She turns over from her back to her front every ten minutes so that she will get what she calls an “even tan”.
After a while the man under the umbrella is joined by another man - tall and freckled with bright red hair. He jokingly rests an icy bottle of water against the first man's bare back before opening the top and handing it to him. The redhead joins his friend on the blanket, flipping over onto his front after a moment and shutting his eyes.
“Gross. They need to get the hell off of our beach,” Stacy says, following Blaine's gaze.
Blaine looks over at Kurt and makes a face. The two men are doing nothing that Stacy herself isn't doing. “What did they do?” he asks her in confusion.
She scoffs and pulls her sunglasses down to squint at Blaine over top of them. “Besides be fags, you mean?”
Blaine widens his eyes as Kurt narrows his. “Don't use that word,” Kurt tells her, his voice like ice.
“Why not? Does it offend you, Kurt? I bet you have people calling you that all the time, huh?”
Kurt makes an irritated sniffing sound and looks away toward the water. Stacy smiles, showing all of her teeth and sits up halfway, leaning back on her elbows. “You know what my dad says?” Kurt doesn't answer her, but Blaine can see his back stiffen. “He says one day when you're older Uncle Burt is in for a surprise. He's gonna come home from work to find you bent over a table by some guy. It's so true, too. Just listen to the way you talk - you sound more like a girl than I do.”
She sneers at Kurt, but he pays her no mind, staring out as if he didn't even hear her. Blaine sits there awkwardly for several minutes, watching the rise and fall of Kurt's shoulders as he breathes. The two men get up from their blanket and laughingly jog into the surf. Stacy has long since resumed her sunbathing as if she hadn't just been horrible to her cousin. Blaine gets up and offers Kurt his hand. “Let's go for a walk,” he says.
Kurt takes it with a wobbly, yet grateful smile and they start off down the beach without a single backwards glance at Stacy.
They go much further up than they usually do. Kurt seems to want to get as far away from other people as he possibly can, so Blaine follows after him. He wishes he knew what to say to make him feel better. He doesn't understand how someone could be so mean and nasty to a member of their family. Even after all the times Cooper had called Blaine names and punched him, Blaine would never do anything to purposely hurt him, would never want to see him hurt. People are supposed to love their families. Kurt's cousin is a terrible person. There were a lot of names Cooper would have coaxed Blaine into calling her if he were there; Blaine flushes as he repeats them all in his head. She's just such a... bitch. You're a bitch, he wants to tell her. He wishes he was braver and could have said it to her face. He wishes he could have made Kurt feel better.
There are large clusters of rock around the cape. Piles of smooth, flat stones and rounded boulders slimy with green sea sludge and weeds. They dart around these, checking to be sure the tide is far out before moving towards the outcroppings that are usually covered by water.
They find an opening let in a rock wall, still moist from the tide that had enveloped it only an hour before. Kurt ducks inside, sticking his head back out a second later to beckon Blaine on.
It's a small cave, the walls smooth and damp from the tides. It smells of salt and mouldering seaweed and earth. Hanging from the ceiling are long spikes of muddied stone that Blaine thinks are called stalactites but can't quite recall. There are a few cracks overhead letting in the occasional beam of sunlight, and Blaine can just make out Kurt's smiling face in the gloom. It's the first smile Blaine's gotten out of him since the beach, which makes it all the nicer.
“This is the coolest place ever,” Kurt says, and Blaine nods in agreement.
“We should keep it a secret. Like a special clubhouse kinda thing.”
They settle on the rocks in front of the opening and watch the far away tide washing over the dark sand. Kurt is quiet again, his eyebrows furrowed in the middle like he's thinking deeply about something. “You're my best friend,” he says at last, eyes still trained on the frothy surf. “What Stacy said about people calling me names... that was true. I don't have very many friends.”
“Don't listen to anything she said, Kurt. She's a terrible person. She's a - ” Blaine hesitates a moment before deciding to muster up the courage and just speak his thoughts unedited for once. “A bitch. She's a horrible, terrible bitch.”
Kurt cracks up laughing until there are happy tears in his eyes and Blaine is glad he said it, even though his heart is still pounding and his hands shaking. He has the urge to glance around to be sure his mother is nowhere near and he just barely squashes it. “You're my best friend, too, you know,” he says. “August is my favourite month of the whole year.”
Kurt gives him a shining smile. “Mine too.”
They sit quietly for several more long moments. Blaine runs his fingers along the cool wet stone under them, tiny particles of sand lodging themselves under his nails. He picks them out and uses his heel to gather some more in a little pile.
“Blaine?” Kurt asks, watching Blaine's foot trail over and through the wet sand. “We're not gonna be like in that movie Beaches, are we? It was one of my mom's favourites, and you're a lot like the pretty one with the dark hair and the sad eyes and I don't want you to die. But I do want us to be best friends forever.”
Blaine has no idea what Beaches is or what happens in it, but he knows that a lifetime of being Kurt's best friend sounds amazing. “We will be, Kurt. It's gonna be amazing.”
~*~
The In-Between - Year Three: Assorted letters and a gift.
Dear Kurt,
I watched that movie Beaches and cried and cried. My Dad walked in on me watching it with Mom and told her to turn it off. She didn't and he seemed mad at her at dinner. I heard them arguing but I couldn't make out the words. What a weird thing to fight about, huh? I guess some of the stuff in it might have been a bit inappropriate for me, but mostly it was just a movie about how important it is to have a best friend. Don't you think? You're my best friend and I know how important it is that I have you. Even if I don't get to see you and talk to you all the time like I want.
The characters in the movie are a little bit like us, I think, only you aren't loud and a little bit crazy and I never, ever want to be a lawyer or do things just because my father would want it.
It's Christmas soon so I thought I would send you a little present. I hope you like it! Cooper's been talking to my parents a little and I think he might be coming home for Christmas this year. I haven't seen him in such a long time. I talked to him on the phone and he said if he doesn't come for Christmas he will visit me this summer.
Maybe I can convince Mom to let me call you on Christmas eve again this year. If so, I'll talk to you soon!
Blaine xoxo
~*~
Blaine!
Guess what? I get to sing a solo at our Christmas concert at school! It's Oh Holy Night. A jerk in my class said he bets I can't wait until my voice changes so I stop sounding like a girl and some of the girls are really jealous that the music teacher picked me, but I'm way better than they are so whatever. I'm so excited! My dad will probably record it so maybe you'll be able to see. Or I can sing it to you over the phone if we get to talk.
Thank you so much! I can't believe you got me a real chef's hat! I'm not sure if I was supposed to wait until Christmas to open it, but I was too impatient! I hope you like your present too. You can open it right away if you want.
If Cooper comes tell him hello for me and that I hope he's enjoying California. I hope you and I get to talk again like last year! I miss you so much.
I'm going to get this in the mail so it makes it to you in time for Christmas!
Kurt
~*~*~
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