Fidelity: Chapter 4 of ~30
Summary: Blaine asks Dave Karofsky to tutor him in math and a unlikely friendship forms among Dave, Blaine and Kurt. Or, Dave learns how to love himself, Blaine learns how to accept love, and Kurt learns that love is more complicated - and simpler - than he ever imagined.
Chapter summary: In which Kurt has a realization, Blaine finally gets to watch football at a gay bar, and Dave still has a crush on Kurt but tries not to do anything stupid. Oh, and Kurt and Blaine have sex yet again, because they’re horny teenage boys who love each other very much, and no one’s home. (I'm sorry if you weren't expecting much porn, but they'll probably continue to do this throughout the fic. Remember, this is AU starting in 3.05.) ~8,000 words.
Chapter warnings: brief, non-graphic reference to suicides in the news and past suicidal thoughts
Pairings in this chapter: Kurt/Blaine (throughout)
Rating: NC-17 overall
Livejournal | Dreamwidth | AO3 | Tumblr
---
Chapter 4
“You know, I've been thinking about Dave," Kurt says to Blaine on Thanksgiving night as they lie intertwined on the couch in the Anderson TV room, exhausted after their second feast of the day. The only light is from a reading lamp in the corner; the TV is off. In the background, they can hear Blaine's parents laughing in the living room.
"What about?" Blaine says. Kurt's head is resting on his shoulder, his forehead tucked against his neck so that he can feel Blaine's throat vibrate with each word. "Do you not want to go to Scandals on Saturday?"
"That's not it. I've been thinking about prom, mostly," Kurt sighs.
"You should never think about prom. Unless it's about how good I looked. Or how awesomely gender-bending I was with my performance of 'I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You.' Or - " Blaine's voice breaks " - how proud I was of you."
"'The fires and hammers forge us, whether we ask them to or not,'" Kurt says. "'They still make us stronger for the fight.'"
"I hope so." Blaine gives Kurt's shoulder a squeeze. It's silent for a moment, the aching sound of breath. "So what were you thinking about Dave and prom?"
"How I betrayed him."
Silence for another few beats. It's pretty clear Blaine doesn't know what to say. Kurt just lets the moment be, comforted by the slow rise and fall of Blaine's chest. "Did you?" Blaine finally says.
"I think so."
"How?"
"Well, you know how I always go on about how everybody should be able to come out at their own pace and yada yada yada?"
"Well, you don't always go on about it, but I know it's your philosophy. And I agree with it."
"Well, I always went on about it with Dave. That he could trust me, that I wouldn't out him, that I wouldn't pressure him to come out and blah blah blah." Kurt lifts his hand from Blaine's chest and circles it the air to encompass all that the blah blah blah entails. "And I don't think I said it so much to be reassuring as I did to rub it in that I was a better person than he had been to me. Because I could have gotten my revenge, but I didn't."
"Hmmm," Blaine says. "Kind of like 'If your enemy's hungry, feed him; if he's thirsty, give him something to drink; and by doing this you will heap burning coals on his head'?"
"Exactly like that!" Kurt jolts up and looks excitedly into Blaine's face. "See? Every time I go wrong, it's because I'm doing something that the Bible approves of."
Blaine smiles and kisses Kurt's forehead. "Is that what you feel bad about? Feeling morally superior to Dave? Because, as I told your dad once, you are in fact morally superior to everyone I know."
Kurt raises an eyebrow. "You did not."
"Yes, I did."
"When?"
"Last March, when I went to the garage and told him he needed to talk to you about sex."
"Oh, yeah. That." Kurt rolls his eyes as he usually does when The Talk comes up, but he's smiling. "So what did my being morally superior have to do with anything?"
Blaine traces Kurt's hairline with his index finger. "I just wanted him to understand how wonderful you are and that you deserved to understand everything so that no one could take advantage of your not knowing - and that's what came out of my mouth."
"It's sweet that you see me as morally superior, but I don't know if it's true." Kurt sighs and puts his cheek back down on Blaine's chest. It's easier this way, sometimes, to talk without looking at Blaine's face, but still feeling the comfort of his voice and body.
Blaine wraps his arms tighter around Kurt. "I don't know. If the worst you can come up with is feeling a little superior to someone who used to bully you, you're doing pretty well."
"Well, I kind of do that with anyone who used to bully me, but - that's not it. I guess I could be doing better with that, but it's not the thing that's bothering me."
"What is, then?" Blaine nudges his toe between Kurt's socked feet.
"Well, I'd said this thing over and over again to Dave about not pressuring him, but I didn't really mean it. Because when push came to shove, I did. I pressured him."
"At prom?"
"Yeah. Right before we were supposed to do our dance, I told him it was his chance to come out. That he should make a difference."
"That's not exactly harassment, Kurt."
Kurt lifts his head again to look at Blaine. "Maybe. But it's not okay, given what I'd told him before, you know? That he should take his own time and I would support him in that. No one ever pressured me to make a big splash with my coming out. And I think - well, I definitely wasn't encouraging him to come out for his own sake. I wanted to draw the attention off of me."
"That was a really horrible night, Kurt. I think you did the best you could."
Kurt sighs. "I don't know. It wasn't completely a reaction to the moment. I'd been thinking about it for a while. I thought that maybe if he came out, he'd see how hard things had been for me and maybe … I don't know. Maybe it would make things equal between us."
"Like, 'Hey, Dave, payback's a bitch'?"
"Yeah, a little. Revenge and … I think maybe I thought it would be easier to see him as a person that way, if he went through some of the same things I had." Kurt sits up, pulling Blaine along with him, re-entangling their limbs at a new angle. There's a little less body contact in this position, but their heads are level and they can see each other more clearly. "I don't like that about myself. No one deserves that. Not even Dave."
"So what are you going to do?"
When Kurt breathes out, it feels like there's a long-carried weight shuddering off his chest. "Apologize. Maybe on Saturday? If I get a chance to talk to him alone."
Blaine squeezes Kurt's hand. "I'll give you that chance if you let me know when"
"Thanks. I will."
"Kurt?"
"Yeah?"
Blaine doesn't speak until Kurt's eyes are fully on his. "You've just proven again that you're the most moral and compassionate person I've ever met."
"Thank you, Blaine." Kurt kisses Blaine's cheek, pulls back, meets his eyes again. "But I think you might be delusional."
"I'm positive, Kurt." Blaine squeezes Kurt's hand again. "I'm not delusional about you."
*
It's a perfect Indian summer day, clear and bright and warm, so reminiscent of spring that Kurt and Blaine get a little crazy with it and make out just a tiny bit in the parking lot before heading into the bar at noon.
But when they walk into Scandals, Kurt can hardly see. Narrow slips of windows running beneath the ceiling let in only a modicum of daylight. Kurt briefly wonders if all bars are like this, all the windows up so high that no one can look out or in, or if it's just the gay ones. And does the privacy make it a refuge or a hiding place?
Without even being conscious of it, he scans the room for emergency exit signs - at the same time taking in the uniformity of the outfits, red and gray and denim. "Hmmm. There are a lot more lesbians here than there were the last time." He nods his head toward a group of about a dozen women clustered together by the pool tables, also in team colors - complete with red nail polish and lipstick on a few of the femmes.
"There are not." Blaine squeezes Kurt's hand. "You're only noticing them because they're all standing together."
"And apparently I'm a total stereotyping lesbophobe, because I would have thought that any lesbians here to watch a football game would look like I did in my John Mellencamp days."
"I'm still trying to picture you in oversized flannel. It seems kind of like sacrilege."
"Trust me, it was."
There are a lot of men there, too - many more than Kurt would have expected for the middle of the day. But everyone who loves football wants to watch football with friends - Kurt has observed this much - and maybe this is the only place they can be with their friends.
Kurt reminds himself to get the hell out of Lima as soon as he can.
"Hey, there's Karofsky," Blaine says. Kurt cringes a little at the name - he's called him Dave or David since this spring, trying to separate the new person from the old. He shrugs the feeling away.
There he is at the bar, his broad back facing them, cropped hair peeking from beneath his red baseball cap, combed smooth and straight like a piece of fine-wale corduroy.
Blaine steps forward and puts his hand on Dave's back and Dave spins around in his chair, beaming. "Blaine!" he says, and Blaine hugs him and Dave's all heart-loose and open in a way that Kurt has never seen before - never imagined was possible.
It's like a whole other face.
Kurt feels himself staring, but he can't get himself to stop.
He gives a small wave when they both turn to look at him.
"Hi, Kurt," Dave says, his smile going from broad to bashful.
Kurt is not about to hug Dave - not just because he's Dave, but because Kurt just doesn't like touching people who aren't Blaine-or-Dad-or-certain-girls as a general rule.
So he offers what he can. "It's good to see you, Dave," he says. Dave's smile goes back to broad and unrestrained and he flushes a little pink.
Dave asks them what they want to drink and orders three slices of pizza, too, apologizing afterward to Kurt for the lack of culinary choices at Scandals. "It's that or hot dogs, and I know you hate hot dogs." Dave takes a sip of his drink, and Kurt notices a smirk flicker across Blaine's lips. He knows there's a dirty joke brewing there that Blaine is just barely succeeding at holding back.
"Well, actually -" Blaine starts.
In private, Kurt would immediately slap Blaine on the ass and tell him to get his mind out of the gutter. And then it occurs to Kurt where they are, and that's it's almost as safe as being in private - so he slaps Blaine's ass and says, "Get your mind out of the gutter." Blaine turns delightfully red.
Dave looks like he's about to spit out his drink, but instead he concentrates very hard and swallows; and Kurt feels this warm rush because he just said and did that in public like straight people do all the time and suddenly he understands the appeal of gay bars, even when they're dark and small and practically windowless. He leans in and kisses Blaine's cheek. "Sorry, couldn't help myself."
"No need to apologize," Blaine says. "Except maybe to our friend here for unwanted exposure to PDA."
Dave shakes his head and holds up one hand in protest. "None needed. Ass-slapping is kind of expected at football games."
They move to a small round table in the middle of what was the dance floor the last time they were here. Dave and Blaine face the big projection screen that's been pulled down in front of the rainbow flag mural, and Kurt sits next to Blaine, half-facing the screen and half-facing Dave.
There's not much time for small talk before the game begins. Kurt reaches into his satchel and pulls out his notebook and starts doodling, paying attention to the game at intervals, mostly at the kicks - since he was a kicker briefly, he still appreciates what goes into it, and is a little amazed that anyone can do it successfully without dancing to Beyoncé.
He completely misses Ohio State's first touchdown, just two minutes into the game, because he can't take his eyes off of Blaine - wide-eyed and breathless and tense with anticipation - and it reminds him a lot of how Blaine looks when they're about to have sex.
The doodling becomes a little more focused then, transforms into sketching, and Kurt looks up at Blaine and down at his notebook, and again up at Blaine to catch the emotions washing over his face, and down again to try to capture their movement on paper. Kurt's not very good at drawing faces - he knows that - but he likes to do it, anyway, especially with Blaine. He likes how it forces him to pay attention to the small details he might not otherwise notice and name - how the tip of Blaine's nose points just a little to the right when he laughs, how his ears are honestly shaped like pretzel halves, how his smile is sometimes a crescent moon and sometimes a heart and sometimes a slivered almond and sometimes almost - not quite, but almost - a narrow rectangle.
Of course, there's not much smiling for a while after that first touchdown. Michigan gets a touchdown, and then a safety (leading to an impassioned groan from Blaine - another way in which sex and football provoke similar responses in him), and then another touchdown.
To Kurt's surprise, Dave is actually a much calmer observer of football than Blaine is. His face is intense with concentration, but there's no yelling or muttered profanities or pumping of fists in the air - just the occasional high-fives with Blaine. During commercials or pauses between plays, he occasionally makes brief scribblings into a pocket-sized spiral notepad that he has propped on the table next to his drink. Half the time that Blaine moans loudly over something that a Wolverine did, Dave calmly remarks about the ingeniousness of the play - to which, at one point, Blaine responds only half-jokingly (at least, Kurt is pretty sure of that), "Whose side are you on, anyway?"
At halftime, the Buckeyes are only one point ahead and the air is giddy with tension. Blaine, however, has calmed down considerably and starts asking Dave questions about his notebook. By the time Kurt gets back from the bathroom, they're both hunched over a large paper napkin, Dave's pen moving quickly over it to jot down numbers and lines and shapes, and both boys have looks of intense scrutiny on their faces. If Kurt didn't know any better, he'd think that they were taking a break to work on geometry.
Kurt begins drawing them both now, focusing on the contrast between the ways their eyebrows knit in thought - Blaine's thick and dark and compact, like a pair of woolly bear caterpillars crawling up opposing blades of grass; Dave's like stretched tildes, the inside corners curling slightly upward. They remind Kurt of Satine's impossibly long eyebrows in Moulin Rouge.
After a while Blaine and Dave both look at him, realizing that they're being watched and recorded, but Kurt refuses to let them see his work. "It's just how I see the world," he says. "It's not how it actually looks."
For some reason, that earns him a sudden, sweet kiss from Blaine - the kind that Finn plants on Rachel all the time in the hallways and at the mall and the movies and before and after and even during glee club - but Blaine has never kissed Kurt in front of anyone except family before and Kurt is overwhelmed with emotion even though he barely even felt the kiss, because this is who Blaine is: spontaneous and loving and never holding anything back.
Except, out in the world, Blaine has to hold back.
Here, though, it's different.
Blaine blushes when he pulls away and Kurt feels his eyes start to water, so he closes them for a moment and breathes, and when he opens them he sees Dave smiling broadly, sharing in their happiness, and Kurt's heart does a little relevé. Or, maybe, he thinks, it would be more appropriate right now to compare it to a completed 21-yard field goal. Well, whatever.
Some of Dave's bar-buddies stop by the table to talk to Dave, and Blaine ingratiates himself to every single one of them. Blaine seems beside himself to be in a place where he can talk about the beauty of football players' strategies and their biceps in the same breath, and his excitement makes Kurt want to grab him and kiss him breathless - and Kurt loves that he could, but he also doesn't want to interrupt the conversation.
Most of them can't be that much older - some probably still in college, others not far out of it. Lima really needs a gay hangout where fake I.D.s aren't a requirement to get in.
When the game starts up again, Kurt shifts between watching it and watching Blaine and Dave. He sketches Blaine's concentrated frown after Michigan makes another touchdown. He notices that Dave's top teeth slope slightly inward toward his tongue, but he doesn't capture that quite right, so he focuses instead on the apples of Dave's cheeks, which he does better - catching the prominence of them around Dave's mouth and under his eyes when he smiles. Dave apparently didn't shave this morning, and there's the velvety shadow of a soul patch underneath his lower lip, and Kurt draws that, too.
Being watched doesn't seem to bother Dave like it does some people, who get all self-conscious and try to adjust their faces so that their perceived flaws don't show - jut out their chins to make their necks seem slimmer, purse their lips to make themselves seem deep in thought. Dave just keeps watching the game and talking to Blaine - occasionally glancing over at Kurt with a smile, but not for long.
* * *
For the first time in seven years, Ohio State loses to Michigan.
Blaine shouts in frustration as the last seconds of the game tick away, and the mood in the bar goes from ebullient drunk to depressed drunk, conversations turning toward the wretchedness of the Wolverines, the general unfairness of life, the misgovernance of the NCAA, and how the Buckeyes would have undoubtedly won if Coach Tressel hadn't been ousted on trumped up corruption charges. Dave tries to convince Anders, a pool buddy who wanders over to their table after the game, that the NCAA was right to discipline Tressel, but gives up when it becomes clear that Anders is very drunk and his only response to anything Dave says is, "Traitor."
Dave doesn't usually drink during games, because he wants to be able to wrap his mind around every play and learn from it. Plus, today, there was the added necessity of not making a fool of himself in front of Kurt or Blaine. And the necessity of not making love-eyes at Kurt, which is hard enough sober.
When one of Dave's regular pool buddies comes over to propose a game, Blaine's eyes light up like he's a five-year-old and someone just offered to take him to Disney World. Kurt, on the other hand, considers the proposition coolly before saying, "Thank you for asking, but I think I'd like to finish up here first," and gesturing to his notebook. "You go ahead, Blaine. I'll be there in a minute."
Blaine frowns. "You'll be okay?"
"Dave will keep me company," Kurt says authoritatively. "Right, Dave?"
The authority in Kurt's voice gives Dave a small, inward thrill. "Yeah, that's fine," Dave says. "I want to finish up my notes anyway."
"Okay, see you in a few," Blaine says, all happiness and light once again. He kisses Kurt on the lips and, even though it doesn't last for more than a few seconds, Dave's pretty sure he sees Blaine slip a little tongue in just for good measure. Kurt's face goes red and flustered and love-stricken and positively radiant, and Dave wishes Blaine would kiss him more just so Kurt could look this happy all the time.
* * *
When he's sober, Blaine understands the allure of gay bars even better than he did when he was drunk.
Except for when he's alone with Kurt, Blaine has never found a place where he can be all the things he is at the same time. He's split his life into compartments. In the Hummel-Hudson living room, on the stadium bleachers or in his own family's den, he is Blaine the Football Lover. At the Hummel-Hudson dining table, he tries to be Blaine the Gentleman, even though it's difficult not to play footsie with Kurt under the table. At Dalton, he was Blaine the Entertainer and Blaine the Bromancer. At McKinley, he is Blaine the One Who Belongs to Kurt (which makes him happier than is probably reasonable), and Blaine the Leading Man, and Blaine the One That Girls Love and Will Never Get. At his paternal grandparents', he is Blaine the Attractive Not-White Grandchild Who Doesn't Talk About His Love Life, and at his maternal grandparents', he is Blaine the Rather White Grandchild Who Should Show Us More Pictures of Him With His Lovely Friend. At the country club, he is Blaine the Good Sport and Blaine the Team Player and Blaine the Sometimes Champion.
But here, Blaine thinks maybe he can be everything and anything at once. He can watch football while humming P!nk and showtunes, french Kurt during the commercial breaks, be polite and congenial to everyone he meets and yet still shout at the television as loudly as his lungs permit, and compliment the women without worrying that he's leading them on. He can be Kurt's boyfriend and still have other guys clamoring to hang out with him. He can play pool well or badly without it being a reflection on his masculinity.
And so, despite the fact that he should be devastated by the Buckeyes' humiliating defeat, he feels chipper and expansive. It's hard to say if he will become true friends with any of the people he meets today. But if he doesn't get any friends out of this deal, that's fine; he might still get a sense that there's a safe place for him and Kurt in this world.
* * *
Blaine has only been gone from the table for a minute or so when Kurt closes his notebook and puts it away in his satchel with an air of finality. He scoots his chair a little so he's facing Dave directly and puts his hand on Dave's notebook.
"When you're done with that, I'd like to talk," Kurt says.
Dave hasn't really been doing anything with his notebook, just flipping through it while waiting to find out why Kurt wanted to keep him there - if Kurt wanted particularly to keep him there, which maybe he didn't, which maybe he only came up with so that Blaine could play pool without worrying about Kurt being lonely.
Except that now Kurt wants to talk, and he's said so in that definitive way he has of saying things, the way that means he's been mulling something over and has come to a plan of action. Dave's not sure whether to react with joy or dread. But it doesn't matter what he feels, Dave supposes; whatever Kurt wants, Dave will oblige. It's not even a question.
So Dave puts down his pen and looks into Kurt's eyes (a little disconcerted by how filled with steely determination they are, but honestly, Dave is usually disconcerted by Kurt in general) and says, casually, "Sure. What about?" even though his heart is thumping like a jackhammer.
"I want to apologize to you, David."
Dave doesn't say anything for a while - just shifts his lower jaw slowly, like he's chewing on something. "For what, exactly?" he finally asks.
"Prom."
It's not the answer Dave expects. Of course, any answer Kurt could give him would surprise him, because Dave can't think of a single thing that Kurt has ever done that calls for an apology. He knows that Kurt's not a saint, but any cruelty he’s ever inflicted on Dave has been minor and fully deserved.
But prom, especially. Dave's the one who abandoned Kurt there and let the whole school mock him for being brave enough to be himself. Kurt faced them all down like a man should. Dave was just a coward.
"Kurt, I have no idea what you're talking about."
"I think you will in a minute," Kurt says. He clears his throat and sits a little straighter in his chair, folding his hands over his crossed knee, the picture of composure. Except that his fingers are trembling.
"Kurt - "
Kurt shakes his head. "I need to say this. Please."
Dave is torn between the desire to grant Kurt whatever it is he says he needs, and to protect Kurt from any discomfort. But Dave really has no choice between the two. If Kurt says he needs something, Dave just has to go with that. “Okay,” he says.
Kurt inhales sharply. "I don't like to think about that night, but I do. A lot. More than I admit even to Blaine." Kurt glances over toward the pool table where Blaine is, his back turned to them as he leans across the table with his cue. Kurt continues to watch Blaine as he speaks, like Blaine is his grounding rod. "It just shows up - something will happen that reminds me of it, or nothing happens at all and I'm still reminded of it, and everything replays in my mind in a fucking endless loop."
Kurt looks back at Dave then, his voice controlled and even. "But there's always something off about it, like I'm not remembering it quite right. And since seeing you again a few weeks ago, I started to figure it out - what was missing. I realized that I always skipped the part right before you left. I skipped over what I said to you."
"Kurt - "
"And what I skipped over was that I told you it was your chance to come out, even though I’d promised you a dozen times I wasn’t going to pressure you." Kurt sighs. "I pressured you.”
"Kurt - " Dave doesn't at all like where this conversation is going. Because maybe what Kurt said wasn’t what Dave wanted to hear at the moment, but shit, Dave hardly ever wants to hear the truth, does he? And even if Dave did go home and cry and feel miserable, it was nothing compared to the whole expansive goddamn fucking craptastic clusterfuck of a night that the junior class put Kurt through, and Blaine through - the night that Dave still knows is his fault, because he didn't speak up sooner and louder. He never spoke up at all. “It doesn’t matter if you were trying to pressure me. You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone.”
"Please, Dave." Kurt lifts his still-trembling hands to the table, folding them neatly together, and Dave could easily lift one of his own hands to encircle them, if he thought it would be any comfort to Kurt. "It matters to me.”
Dave looks down at his glass of melting ice. "But why?"
Even though Dave doesn't look up, he can see Kurt lean forward. "Because I was just trying to drag you down into my own misery. And that’s not right. So I want to apologize for it."
Dave looks up, his vision getting blurry with the first hint of tears, and he would be ashamed except that it's Kurt, and Kurt has every right to see him break. "Seriously, Kurt. Nothing you could have said could have dragged me down any further than I already was. And if it would have helped you, I should have done it."
Kurt picks up Dave's glass of melting ice from the table and looks into it. There is something intimate about that gesture, as intimate as Dave can ever hope for from Kurt.
Kurt swings the glass in his hand, letting the water swirl in an even circle beneath the rim. His hand is no longer trembling. "I don't think it would have helped me," he finally says, setting the glass down and looking up again at Dave. "And even if it would have, it's not about what I want or don't want. It's about what you want - for yourself."
"Thanks, Kurt. But I - "
"Dave. Please accept my apology. I was in the wrong." And then, almost imperceptibly, a flash of mischievousness crosses Kurt's face. "Really. Me being wrong doesn't happen often. How many opportunities like this are you going to get?"
If Kurt were explicitly setting out to make Dave fall in love with him, he couldn't be doing a better job.
"Of course I’ll accept your apology. But you don't have anything to feel bad about."
Kurt smiles - disarmingly wide and open. "Oh, I don't. Not anymore," he says, vaguely, and Dave tries not to read into it too much, tries not to think that his forgiving Kurt - that anything he does for Kurt - can make any sort of difference in Kurt's life.
"Well, I guess it's time I learned how to play pool," Kurt says, pushing his chair back decisively. "Know any good teachers?"
Dave is about to answer, but then Kurt stands up - and with just that quick, graceful movement, everything rushes up in Dave, the craving and awe that he's been working all day not to feel or show. Kurt's shirt shifts over his muscles as he bends to pick up his bag and Dave pictures himself wrapped behind that body at the pool table, Kurt's back pressed against his chest, Dave's chin brushing Kurt's shoulder, their hands touching high on the cue as Dave shows Kurt how to align it with the ball, where and how to strike. Dave closes his eyes.
"You okay, David?" He hears Kurt's voice, a little closer now than it was before, and that's wow but it's not good at all because Kurt's crotch must be right in front of Dave's face and if he opens his eyes, the first thing he's going to see is the fly of Kurt's tight, tight jeans and there is no way he'll be able to hide a single one of his dirty, dirty thoughts. "Dave?"
Dave swings his face away from Kurt's voice and stands up, opening his eyes only when he's fully on his feet. "Yeah, fine," he says. "Just - I think one of my contacts slipped. I'll be right back."
"Okay," Kurt calls after him. "See you at the pool table."
It's seven minutes before Dave can safely leave the bathroom. When he gets to the pool table, Blaine is in the place that Dave had imagined himself to be - wrapped around Kurt, their cheeks touching as Blaine shows him how to sight the cue. Kurt blushes a little, but his apparent shyness belies the easy intimacy with which their bodies move together. It's gorgeous and hot, and Dave doesn't feel one bit guilty about enjoying it as long as it's Blaine who's touching Kurt, as long as Dave can just keep himself out of the picture.
He'll watch the hungry, unashamed glances that Blaine and Kurt give each other, and promise to himself that, one day, he'll be brave enough to love another man that way.
* * *
Kurt is practically bubbling as they drive back from Scandals. He's commandeered the iTunes to sing along with "Defying Gravity," giggling and bouncing in his seat every time he catches Blaine smiling at him.
"You're in an awfully good mood for having spent your afternoon watching football," Blaine says.
"I was only half-watching. Maybe that's why." Kurt smiles - or rather, continues smiling, but maybe just a little bigger than before. "And it probably helps that I'm not a fan, or I might be sobbing."
"I'm a fan and I'm not sobbing."
"You're very stoic." Kurt puts a hand on Blaine's knee. "Although the way you moaned was quite impressive." Kurt slides his hand slightly up Blaine’s thigh and gives a soft pinch.
"Why thank you." Blaine winks and settles his hand on top of Kurt's, lightly so that Kurt can snatch it back to the steering wheel without warning if he needs to. "But not caring whether a team wins or loses doesn't usually make someone as … ebullient as you are right now."
"'Ebullient'? I'm impressed."
"I went to Dalton, too, remember?" He winks again, but Kurt doesn't catch it because his eyes are on the road. "So, tell me what put you in such a good mood."
"I'm sure you could guess," Kurt says. "Good company," he squeezes Blaine's leg, "good kisses, I got to touch your ass, I learned a little pool. I really didn't think I'd come to like Scandals, but I think I'm starting to get it."
"It was nice hanging out with Dave, too."
"Yeah," Kurt says. "It was. And thanks for giving me time to talk to him. That was … a relief."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. He's apologized, I've apologized. I feel like - like I've stopped dangling anything over his head, you know? Like all last spring, I had this agenda. I was going to set up the circumstances so he'd be ready to come out and then I wouldn't be the only out gay kid in the school. But I think maybe it's good he didn't. I mean, it seems like a month doesn't pass where some kid who's out and dealing and has made a great 'It Gets Better' video goes and kills themselves. Being out isn't the solution to everything."
Blaine's heart stops. "Kurt, if you ever -"
They pull up to a stop sign and Kurt looks at Blaine straight in the eye. "Of course I'd come to you first. And dad - or maybe Carole. She might handle it better. But I don't think - I can't imagine I'd go anywhere near there again. But I promise, if I do -" He blinks and swallows. "You, too. If you -"
"I'll come to you first. And Miss Pillsbury, or - Carole is a good idea, actually. She's totally calm under fire."
Kurt smiles. "She is. I've got a talent for picking out awesome stepmothers."
The car behind them honks to get them moving through the intersection. Kurt mutters something insulting under his breath but puts both hands back on the wheel, checks for the all-clear and goes.
After a minute of silence, he speaks again. "Anyway, with Dave. I just - I didn't expect that apologizing to him today would make me feel so … liberated, I guess. Like we can just be … equals now."
"Friends?"
"Maybe. He's kind of, well, interesting. I've always wondered what things would have been like if the whole bullying thing hadn't been so complicated. If he'd just shoved me into lockers and thrown me in the dumpster like Puck -"
"Has Puck ever apologized for that?"
"Last year - right after I transferred to Dalton, actually -" he reaches over to squeeze Blaine's leg again "- the football team tipped him in a port-a-potty and he had this - well, he called it a 'spiritual awakening.' And afterward he comes into my room when he's over visiting Finn and he goes," (Kurt slackens his face into Puck's perpetual expression of nonchalance), "'Dude, on the off-chance that you're, like, partially Jewish somewhere on your family tree, I wanted to tell you I'm sorry that I used to throw you in dumpsters, and call the glee club 'gay,' and was a dick about Diana Ross and, you know, all that stuff. I'm not gonna be a douchebag to you anymore. Unless you do something douchey to me.'"
Blaine laughs. "Seriously? That's what he said?"
"Yeah. I have it on my phone somewhere. I pressed record because I thought he was going to say something insulting about me transferring to Dalton and I could use it to convince dad and Carole not to let him in the house anymore." Kurt's smile is so toothy it could light up an entire building. "Joke was on me, though."
"Is that why you guys are friends now?" Blaine says.
"I guess," Kurt says. "Though I'm not sure I think of him as a friend. Not like Rachel or Mercedes, but I trust him, mostly. I guess we're like - not brothers, exactly. Maybe he’s like the cousin you don’t talk to all the time, but you’re glad to sit next to at the annual Fourth of July family picnic."
"So maybe you'll be cousins with Dave one of these days?"
"Maybe. Or maybe we’ll be friends. I don't know. I mean, I guess it depends on what comes to the surface once he starts letting himself be himself more.” He sighs. "I just - I hope he's being more himself at his new school. I mean, obviously he's not with the gay stuff, but maybe with the other things. I mean, when he was at McKinley, he let half the football team think that the reason he wasn't in algebra with them was because he was in remedial."
Blaine frowns. "I'm glad he didn't try to hide it from me. I really need the help."
"It’s like magic when he talks about math, isn't it?"
"I told him 'poetry.'"
"That works, too." Kurt bounces in his seat. "So, are you guys going to keep doing the tutoring?"
"Yeah, Wednesday this week, since you'll be at the shop, but then we'll switch to Mondays and Thursdays."
"Good. He might just make you fall in love with geometry one of these days. He kind of gave me a crush on differential equations."
Blaine chuckles.
"You never know, Blaine. Love comes when you least expect it." They're pulling into Blaine's driveway now. Kurt cuts off the engine and turns to him, eyes alight. "It did to me."
"Kurt -"
Kurt unbuckles his belt and leans toward Blaine, kissing him softly at first. "I'm so happy to have you, Blaine." Another kiss. "I love watching you watch football, and I love watching you make friends, and I loved feeling you against me when you were teaching me how to hold the cue, and the way you moaned during the game was just like sex, and I love -"
Like so much of their kissing these days, everything soon becomes frantic, the push-pull of tongues and the pressing of bodies, the need for closer and together.
Blaine pulls away, breathless. "Come inside?"
"In more ways than one if you want." Kurt winks, but there's nothing coy about it. His face is flushed and his chest is heaving.
Blaine's heart stops for the second time this afternoon, but this time it's for entirely happy reasons. They haven't done this yet. At least, not the way that he thinks Kurt means. "Really? Like come come?"
"Yeah. I want - I want to. If you want me to."
It's difficult to pull away from Kurt, to climb out of the car and up the front steps, to have enough presence of mind to shout, "We're here!" and make sure there's no response (Blaine's parents are supposed to be out, but it's always good to check), to not strip off each piece of Kurt's clothing in the vestibule and rut up against him on the stairway.
But it's not difficult when they get to Blaine's room and close the door.
*
"You like that, don’t you?" says Kurt, a self-satisfied smile spreading across his face as he teases a slick fingertip over Blaine's hole.
"Don't tease me, Kurt. You know I like it."
Kurt leans over and sucks Blaine's neck. "Not trying to tease," he mutters. "Just like to hear you say it." He pushes then, sliding leisurely into Blaine, fucks his finger into Blaine the way Blaine likes it in the beginning, smooth and slow.
Kurt's fingers are long and perfect and so much better inside Blaine than his own. "Want you," Blaine mutters
Kurt kisses down Blaine's chest. "You already have me."
Kurt's licking into the dip of Blaine's navel when he slides a second finger in. Blaine's cock jerks against his stomach and Kurt seems to take that as a beckon. He moves down and starts to mouth at the shaft.
Blaine breathes slow and steady to keep himself from coming, gently steers Kurt's face away from his cock.
"You're so mean to me," Kurt smirks. "You know how much of every day I spend thinking about your cock in my mouth?"
"Here," Blaine gasps, touching his fingers over Kurt's lips. Kurt sinks his mouth over them and sucks, moaning and humming as he moves his own fingers in and out of Blaine's ass, twists them in the slick slide of lube.
"Oh, fuck, please Kurt."
Kurt slides his mouth off Blaine's fingers. "Hold on, I need to make sure you're ready." He drops his head down between Blaine's thighs. Blaine can feel Kurt's breath on his ass, looks down and sees Kurt biting his bottom lip as he stares at his fingers moving in and out.
"God, Blaine, you're so beautiful." Kurt drags his fingers almost all the way out and then - fuck - it's a lot more, so much more and so good that Blaine's really not sure he's going to be able to hold on.
"Shh," Kurt murmurs, and Blaine realizes that he just shouted. "Breathe. We'll get there soon."
Blaine breathes, feels his shoulders relax into the mattress, feels his ass become loose and pliant, his body take and take and take some more. In the back of his head, there's this nagging voice telling him he should be reaching for a condom now, he should be rolling it onto Kurt's cock and stroking Kurt wet with lube, but he's delirious, can't move except for the rock-rock-rock against Kurt's fingers.
Kurt crawls up over him, by some miracle keeping his perfect-awesome-love fingers inside for Blaine to rock against, and gropes with his free hand toward the nightstand drawer where the condoms are. He's smiling down toward Blaine with the radiance of a thousand suns - wait, no, that would be blinding and painful, this is just gorgeous and so warm that Blaine can feel it down to his bones - and hands the condom packet to Blaine.
"Here," Kurt says. "I think it'll be easier to open with two hands. But I can put it on myself." He blushes - well, his face has already been pink for a while, but the edges of his ears and the peaks of his collarbones burn almost red. "I've been practicing."
"Kiss me," Blaine says, and Kurt does, possessing Blaine's mouth just the way he likes it to be possessed. He wants to belong to Kurt forever.
Somewhere in that kiss, Blaine manages to unwrap the condom and hand it off to Kurt. Somewhere in that kiss, Kurt manages to roll it onto himself, to stroke his own cock wet with lube while Blaine grips at his shoulders and hips. Somewhere in that kiss, Kurt slides his fingers out of Blaine and presses the head of his cock against the wanting muscle. Blaine instinctively folds his thighs up to his chest, rocks gently onto Kurt’s cock - maybe too gently, afraid of accidentally pushing Kurt away. Kurt rocks back, a little more decisively, and oh god Blaine can feel Kurt start to push through, feels his muscle stretch and swallow and oh god the head of Kurt's cock is inside him. He shudders with the pleasure of having just that much, with the anticipation of having more. It's already better than Blaine ever imagined.
Kurt rocks, whispers I love you and you feel so good and I love you again as he sinks in incrementally. There's a drag over oh god and Kurt hums with satisfaction at the noise that Blaine makes and then it's deeper, deeper, so good until Kurt's pelvis is flush against his ass and fuck yes so good Kurt is all the way inside him, the way he's been inside Blaine all along.
They keep kissing as Kurt drags himself in and out, plays with that oh fuck yes spot that makes Blaine feel like they've become life itself - the blossoming of flowers and the unfurling of trees and the song of birds outside the window.
They break the kiss sometimes, to whisper I love you and amazing and so perfect to each other, to move and angle their bodies for pleasure - but they always come back to kissing, sooner or later, always come back to where they first began.
They kiss and Kurt's breath stutters in the way it does when he's close, and that oh fuck that brings Blaine right to the edge. He wraps his hands around the back of Kurt's neck, curling his fingers into the short hairs there, and pulls his face far enough away to see Kurt's eyes clearly. They're wide open, shocked, and Kurt's lips are trembling, and god he's the most beautiful thing Blaine has ever seen, ever will see.
"Come inside me, Kurt. Fuck me."
Kurt lets out a groan and digs his fingers into Blaine's hips, thrusting a little harder and yes, over and over, but somehow Blaine manages to keep his eyes open, keep them on Kurt, watch Kurt’s face in the process of unraveling. Kurt bites the fleshy mound of Blaine's palm as he comes, comes so hard that he collapses on Blaine without trying to catch himself, and that's the thing that does Blaine in - Kurt's cock quaking in Blaine's ass, Kurt's belly pressing down on Blaine's cock - Blaine spills onto both of them, spills like he might never stop.
He does stop, eventually, though. Kurt, too. Kurt pulls out slowly, reluctantly, and Blaine squeezes his ring of muscle, already wishing Kurt could be inside it again.
They don't clean up immediately. Kurt is fastidious about a lot of things, but not about come and sweat - not when it's a result of them being together, at least. Which is good, because Blaine's discovered he kind of has a thing for Kurt covered in come.
"I love you." Kurt kisses Blaine's forehead before wrapping his sweaty, come-soaked body around Blaine's side. "I love you so much."
"I love you, too," Blaine says. "Thank you."
Kurt chuckles. "Thank you? I'm pretty sure the pleasure was all mine."
Blaine smiles. "Um, no. Definitely not all yours."
"You make me kind of curious. About how it feels. You make it look so -" Kurt makes a low hum, almost a purr, of pleasure.
"It is. With you. But I don't know. My fingers aren't as good as yours. I've compared. And my dick - well, I can't compare our dicks, but I'd bet a hundred dollars that yours works way better magic than mine."
"I guess we'll have to try it out sometime." Kurt trails his index finger over Blaine's chest. "Purely for comparative purposes, of course."
* * *
Dave stays at the bar after Kurt and Blaine leave, playing pool until the evening crowd starts to trickle in. His stomach growls, reminding him he hasn't eaten anything substantial since before the game. He walks up to the bar to order more pizza.
He's not there long before he feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see Sebastian leaning close to him, swirling a glass of whiskey in his hand. "Hey, bear cub," he smirks. "Want me to teach you how to growl?"
Dave sighs into his beer. He's not in the mood today. "Couldn't we just talk, instead?"
"About what?" Sebastian guffaws. "Eyebrow grooming techniques, Liberace?"
Dave hates it when Sebastian uses that nickname, for more reasons than Sebastian will ever know.
Sebastian slaps Dave on the shoulder. "We have nothing in common except that we're both young and we both want to get laid - even if you pretend not to."
I want more than that, Dave wants to say, but there's no point. Besides, he really doesn't deserve more than that. Dave takes a sip of his beer and shrugs. "Look, I'm gonna go play a round of pool. You can join me if you want, or don't if you don't."
Sebastian cocks his eyebrows. "I thought I already made it clear I'm not interested in getting to know you. I just want a warm body tonight."
Dave knows it's obnoxious, but it doesn't piss him off. He's not really worth being treated as more than a warm body, even if being around Kurt makes him wish it were so.
* * *
When Kurt gets home that night, he goes into the attic. There's a shopping bag that he shoved up there the morning after prom, after Blaine convinced him not to throw his crown and scepter into the river.
Kurt pulls the shopping bag out from a large open crate of odds and ends. He feels for the objects through the plastic of the bag before opening it - miraculously, they don't seem to be broken despite the fact that Kurt wedged the bag rather forcefully into the crate last spring, half-hoping to destroy its contents in the process.
He loops the bag handle around his belt and retreats down the ladder to his room. Once there, he stands in front of his bookshelf, scanning for the perfect spot. It doesn't take long to find.
He takes the scepter out first, laying it in front of Yorick, the glittery silver skull Kurt added to his curio collection after seeing Hamlet his sophomore year. That gaudy symbol of death had seemed, at the time, an appropriate way to mourn his crush on Finn without completely giving up on youthful hope.
He takes a deep breath before withdrawing the crown from the bag. It is a coronation, and deserves the gravity of one.
With two hands, he sets the crown on the skull.
"King Yorick, may they call you a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; and let your flashes of merriment once again set the table on a roar."