Fic: The Gravity That Binds Us
Here's another ficlet I started the week after 3.05 The First Time and never finished. I think I intended it to be part of the same fic as this, which is probably why I never finished either of them. They are so different, tonally. Of course, so were Kurt and Blaine for much of that episode.
It ends just before the "If you see any of Rachel's campaign posters, feel free to tear them down"/"Do you think we're too sheltered as artists?" that takes place in canon.
Kurt POV, 816 words, no warnings. Unless you need to be warned for science.
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The day after Kurt asks Blaine if he ever thinks about them ripping each other's clothes off, and Blaine frustratingly responds with a reasonable, well-thought-out and (going by the number of times Blaine has made a similar speech) rather rote answer about waiting until they're both ready, Kurt is sitting in astronomy class, starry-eyed and unable to stop thinking about Blaine's perky little ass in those burgundy jeans.
Kurt almost didn't sign up for astronomy. Since his freshman year at McKinley, he's always associated the astronomy room - and hence, the entire field of science - with straight kids making out. So, without giving it any thought, he penciled in Physics as his science selection when he got his course sign-up sheet at the end of junior year.
And then, the night before he had to turn the form in, the power in his part of town went out. Blaine was over for dinner, and they went and sat on the back stoop and looked up. The sky was moonless, and the stars were brighter than Kurt had ever seen in the city. They stuffed their cell phones into their pockets to make the night darker, and Kurt could barely see Blaine next to him - but they were holding hands, and he could feel Blaine's heartbeat, warm and strong, where their skin touched; and they were nestled together, elbow to shoulder; and Blaine's voice was rich like brightly polished ebony. All that was, in the moment, just as good as sight.
"I can see Andromeda," Blaine whispered slowly, his voice filled with awe and something like a reverence that people usually reserve for describing visions of angels or the first time they held a newborn in their arms.
Kurt stared up at the night sky and realized he didn't know the name of a single star. He knew a handful of constellation names - the Big Dipper, Orion, Cassiopeia - but he couldn't make them out from the plethora of lights above him.
After the power came back on and Blaine left, Kurt opened his satchel and took out his course sign-up. He erased "Physics" and wrote "Astronomy" in its place.
So that's why he's here, thinking about Blaine's perky ass with one part of his brain and listening to Mrs. Buchanan with another part. She's talking about how the sun moves at 43,000 miles per hour around the galaxy, according to the lowest estimate. Kurt tries to distract himself from thoughts of Blaine's ass by picturing this in his head. It takes a few tries, but eventually Blaine's ass fades and an artist's rendering of outer space appears: The sun lazily winding a smooth, circular trajectory through the Milky Way, trailing toward the star Vega but never quite catching up.
Then Mrs. Buchanan reminds the class that the Milky Way is itself flying through the universe at 1.3 million miles per hour, and the sun is racing along with it. And because of gravity, every planet and comet in the solar system, every object on Earth, every single person in the classroom is hurtling along with it, just as fast.
"And, just think," she says. "The universe may be moving even faster inside something even larger and, as yet, unknown - a multiverse."
Kurt thinks of the sun spinning inside the galaxy spinning inside a collection of galaxies spinning inside the universe spinning inside the multiverse. He tries to picture what it would look like if he darkened all the other stars and watched only the sun's light careening through time and space.
He pictures a comet in its elliptical orbit, swinging out past Pluto and Eris in the Kuiper Belt and then back to graze the sun at perihelion every five, 76, or 2,533 years. This comet is also in motion and yet it never just flings off into another part of the galaxy. It's always drawn back to the sun.
The whole time he's picturing this, Blaine is still in the back of his mind - not a clear image, but more like a sound or vibration - a soft susurration echoing the movement of the planets and stars.
After the bell rings, Kurt walks down the hall in a bit of a trance. He's distracted with thoughts of outer space and of Blaine, and he doesn't realize until he's almost there that he's walking toward Blaine's locker, not his own.
Kurt laughs quietly to himself. An image strikes him then: Blaine as the sun, and Kurt as a comet who has just been out to the Kuiper Belt and is now returning home.
He catches sight of Blaine's face past the bobbing heads crowding the hallway and Blaine's face really does look like warmth and light. But when Kurt walks up to Blaine, he doesn't tell him that he's the sun. It's too cheesy. Kurt swallows the comparison and opts, instead, to say something more pedestrian.
It ends just before the "If you see any of Rachel's campaign posters, feel free to tear them down"/"Do you think we're too sheltered as artists?" that takes place in canon.
Kurt POV, 816 words, no warnings. Unless you need to be warned for science.
-----
The day after Kurt asks Blaine if he ever thinks about them ripping each other's clothes off, and Blaine frustratingly responds with a reasonable, well-thought-out and (going by the number of times Blaine has made a similar speech) rather rote answer about waiting until they're both ready, Kurt is sitting in astronomy class, starry-eyed and unable to stop thinking about Blaine's perky little ass in those burgundy jeans.
Kurt almost didn't sign up for astronomy. Since his freshman year at McKinley, he's always associated the astronomy room - and hence, the entire field of science - with straight kids making out. So, without giving it any thought, he penciled in Physics as his science selection when he got his course sign-up sheet at the end of junior year.
And then, the night before he had to turn the form in, the power in his part of town went out. Blaine was over for dinner, and they went and sat on the back stoop and looked up. The sky was moonless, and the stars were brighter than Kurt had ever seen in the city. They stuffed their cell phones into their pockets to make the night darker, and Kurt could barely see Blaine next to him - but they were holding hands, and he could feel Blaine's heartbeat, warm and strong, where their skin touched; and they were nestled together, elbow to shoulder; and Blaine's voice was rich like brightly polished ebony. All that was, in the moment, just as good as sight.
"I can see Andromeda," Blaine whispered slowly, his voice filled with awe and something like a reverence that people usually reserve for describing visions of angels or the first time they held a newborn in their arms.
Kurt stared up at the night sky and realized he didn't know the name of a single star. He knew a handful of constellation names - the Big Dipper, Orion, Cassiopeia - but he couldn't make them out from the plethora of lights above him.
After the power came back on and Blaine left, Kurt opened his satchel and took out his course sign-up. He erased "Physics" and wrote "Astronomy" in its place.
So that's why he's here, thinking about Blaine's perky ass with one part of his brain and listening to Mrs. Buchanan with another part. She's talking about how the sun moves at 43,000 miles per hour around the galaxy, according to the lowest estimate. Kurt tries to distract himself from thoughts of Blaine's ass by picturing this in his head. It takes a few tries, but eventually Blaine's ass fades and an artist's rendering of outer space appears: The sun lazily winding a smooth, circular trajectory through the Milky Way, trailing toward the star Vega but never quite catching up.
Then Mrs. Buchanan reminds the class that the Milky Way is itself flying through the universe at 1.3 million miles per hour, and the sun is racing along with it. And because of gravity, every planet and comet in the solar system, every object on Earth, every single person in the classroom is hurtling along with it, just as fast.
"And, just think," she says. "The universe may be moving even faster inside something even larger and, as yet, unknown - a multiverse."
Kurt thinks of the sun spinning inside the galaxy spinning inside a collection of galaxies spinning inside the universe spinning inside the multiverse. He tries to picture what it would look like if he darkened all the other stars and watched only the sun's light careening through time and space.
He pictures a comet in its elliptical orbit, swinging out past Pluto and Eris in the Kuiper Belt and then back to graze the sun at perihelion every five, 76, or 2,533 years. This comet is also in motion and yet it never just flings off into another part of the galaxy. It's always drawn back to the sun.
The whole time he's picturing this, Blaine is still in the back of his mind - not a clear image, but more like a sound or vibration - a soft susurration echoing the movement of the planets and stars.
After the bell rings, Kurt walks down the hall in a bit of a trance. He's distracted with thoughts of outer space and of Blaine, and he doesn't realize until he's almost there that he's walking toward Blaine's locker, not his own.
Kurt laughs quietly to himself. An image strikes him then: Blaine as the sun, and Kurt as a comet who has just been out to the Kuiper Belt and is now returning home.
He catches sight of Blaine's face past the bobbing heads crowding the hallway and Blaine's face really does look like warmth and light. But when Kurt walks up to Blaine, he doesn't tell him that he's the sun. It's too cheesy. Kurt swallows the comparison and opts, instead, to say something more pedestrian.