Glee fic: Arpeggio (The Broken Chord of Love Remix), Blaine/Kurt
Remix Redux authors have been revealed, I can post this here now. I actually wrote two stories for Remix, but the first went astray of the original. No, really astray. No, REALLY ASTRAY, such that I decided to save it for later. It was based off a tiny ficlet, so it was easy to go really astray, but still. So I wrote a second story, the one I actually posted. (The first will end up a part of the poly glee family series, so yeah.)
I wanted to write about a chromatic character, and in a way, I did, but in a way I didn't, too, because the show has never flat out acknowledged that Blaine is biracial, though there was that little hipster racism comment by Rachel in "Blame It On the Alcohol." Still, this story is informed by my belief that he is biracial.
No one guessed that this was mine, which is the first time I've done something like this and no one got it. (And despite there being a blink-and-you'll-miss-it glimpse of the badass foursome I so love.) I can't decide if that's because I've only posted one other Blaine-pov story, so my Blaine voice isn't fully established in the minds of readers, if I managed to not sound like myself (doubt it), or if the people who are the best at guessing just don't read Glee (this is my guess). We'll see what happens during Yuletide.
Anyway, here's the fic.
Title: Arpeggio (The Broken Chord of Love Remix)
Author: escritoireazul
Written for: flyingcarpet for Remix Redux 9: Love Potion No. 9
Based on: Right Now
Characters/Pairings: Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel
Word count: 3000+
Rating: 13+
Summary: One moment has led to all other moments for Kurt and Blaine.
0.
The first day of senior year, Blaine holds his boyfriend’s hand tight as bright blue slushy drips from his eyelashes and slides down his neck into the collar of his shirt. It's so cold his skin aches from it, and his whole body goes tight. Part of him wants to run straight back to Dalton, where he was protected and popular, and part of him wants to lash out, to hit that jock until he goes down and stays down.
Through it all, Kurt's fingers are strong against Blaine's.
1.
Blaine stares at the transfer papers. The edges flutter, like they’ve been caught in a breeze, but he’s inside and not standing near an air conditioner vent. Then he realizes how badly he’s shaking.
His parents sit side by side on the couch, holding hands. They’re watching him, and if he looked at their faces, maybe he would have a better idea of what they’re thinking, but he can’t do it. He can’t. He’s barely managed this much. Just telling them what he wants -- just finding words is a struggle when he’s so shaken by it himself.
“Honey, look at me.” His mother waits to continue until he finally drags his gaze up and meets her eyes. “You’re certain you want this?”
He nods, sharp and fast, because if he hesitates, he’ll lose this moment, lose their support, lose this chance.
“Okay.” She's holding his father’s hand in her left hand; she reaches for Blaine with her right. He clutches at her fingers, the rattle of the papers loud now, and lets her tie them together, between what Blaine is and what his father wants; between what his father is and what Blaine wants; between everything they’ve ever given him to keep him safe and what he thinks he now needs.
His father sighs, heavy and sad, but nods. “Okay,” he agrees, and just like that, the weight of everything he is and wants to be, of everything he left behind and now chases, settles onto him.
2.
Blaine has very particular ideas about the final formal dance of his junior year of high school, but none of them are anything at all like reality. He does not attend the Dalton Academy-Crawford County Day Spring Formal which takes place at the same fancy hotel as it does every year, because if there is one thing Dalton and Crawford do well -- and there are many -- it is tradition.
But tradition goes on without Blaine -- with him, too, the way the Warblers keep texting him pictures all night; his favorite is the one of Wes, David, and their girlfriends, all four of them grinning so big. It is the first time in weeks -- since Kurt transferred back to McKinley -- that Blaine has seen Wes smile like that, instead of watching him with a somber expression and a knowing look in his eyes. Blaine has not yet admitted to himself what Wes has already tried to accept -- because Blaine is with his boyfriend at the William McKinley High School Junior-Senior Prom. The Lima Hilton is no Lincoln Colonial, and the decorations -- crepe paper and balloon arches and glitter explosions -- do nothing to add any class to the largest conference room. The only people Blaine knows are the members of New Directions, and despite his date and drunken kisses with Rachel, of them, he only knows Kurt well.
No matter, because right by Kurt’s side -- by his boyfriend's side, his boyfriend, his boyfriend, the word is still so new and so wonderful -- is exactly where he wants to be.
#
Kurt looks amazing. Blaine tries to tell him that when he comes down the stairs at the Hummel-Hudson house -- it's a moment right out of the sappiest teen romance, and that is another thing Blaine did not expect -- but his tongue feels too big for his mouth and his throat goes dry and all the blood in his head rushes south.
Blaine likes the precision of school uniforms, the sharp layers and a perfectly knotted tie. He likes the way he looks with his classmates, with the Warblers, all of them just so. He may sing the majority of the solos, he may dance in front of them and leap onto furniture, but every moment in that uniform feels like another moment he belongs.
But faced with Kurt, Kurt and his outfits which are sometimes charming and sometimes beautiful and sometimes absurd, Kurt and all the myriad ways he expresses himself without opening his mouth to say a single word, Blaine thinks he might someday understand why people love -- why Kurt loves -- fashion so.
Watching Kurt come down the stairs in his kilt, the crisp white shirt tucked into it, the jacket cut to accentuate his shoulders, and his tall black boots hugging his legs, Blaine is struck by two thoughts nearly simultaneously: He’s safe in his uniform, and bound.
His boyfriend is the hottest guy on the damn planet.
#
“And smile!” The photographer is chipper, his voice too loud and too bright. The backdrop is ridiculous, a moonlit gazebo that does not look real at all -- it looks, maybe, like a parody of a joke about a real gazebo -- and the lights are oddly positioned, but Blaine squeezes Kurt’s hand and steps into place. He can’t stop looking at Kurt -- looking up into his eyes and looking down to check out his ass in that kilt -- and he can’t stop grinning.
Kurt puts his arm around Blaine’s shoulders, squeezing him close, his grip almost too hard and too tight. Blaine rubs one hand along the small of Kurt’s back, relax and peace and I’m so glad I’m here with you in a simple touch.
The great big flash dazzles him when it goes off, but nothing, nothing, is better than the way Kurt takes his hand again and smiles at him, a smug little curl of his mouth that makes Blaine want to kiss him and makes all his thoughts run to all the wicked things they have done and all they have yet to do.
#
Prom feels like it lasts forever, and at the same time, it goes so fast. Toward the end of the night, Kurt dances with Mercedes and Rachel to Ke$ha’s “Blow.” Blaine keeps dancing, too, even though he’s incredibly distracted by Kurt’s every move -- that shimmy is sexy; that slow lift of the hip is sexy; the hint of tongue against his lip is sexy -- because they’re surrounded by most of the rest of New Directions -- Lauren and Puck disappeared a couple songs back, and thirty seconds ago, Tina looped her arms around Mike’s neck, whispered something in his ear, and the two of them slipped away from the dance floor too -- and he likes dancing with them, the way they all sparkle and shine under the spinning colored lights, different and unbound, but beautiful, every last one.
While Blaine is distracted watching Kurt spin Mercedes, Finn sneaks up on him, which is quite an accomplishment, considering he’s a giant. But he manages it; one moment he’s not there and the next he is, swaying awkwardly back and forth. It takes Blaine a second to realize he’s dancing.
“Hello, Finn.” It’s always a good idea to be polite to your boyfriend’s brother. Blaine’s pleased with how quick he’s picking up all these ways to be a good boyfriend.
“Hi.” Blaine does a smooth little step and turn, not really bothered by Finn’s boring back and forth, but when they’re facing each other again, Finn leans in close, stopping him from any more slick dance moves. “I’m not going to threaten you.”
Blaine raises his eyebrows. “Thank you?”
“But.” Of course there’s a but. Blaine waits, patient, his eyes steady on Finn’s face. “It’s Prom. There’s certain things people expect at,” he stops. It takes him a second to start again. “Kurt is special, and he deserves special.”
“I agree.” He reaches up and places his hand lightly on Finn’s shoulder. Finn nods fast, and it’s clear he’s not entirely comfortable with his brother’s boyfriend touching him in front of everyone while they dance -- sort of dance, at least -- but he doesn’t shove Blaine’s hand off and he doesn’t move away.
“Good.”
“Good.”
“Good?” Kurt dances up to them, one eyebrow lifted as he looks at them. Blaine grins and turns to his boyfriend, his hand falling away from Finn. The music changes, slows, and he holds out his hands, offering the dance to Kurt, offering himself.
3.
One of his aunts once told Blaine on time meant you were late and ever since, he’s been careful to always arrive five minutes early if he can. Kurt still beats him to the Lima Bean, and by enough time that when Blaine spots him, he has two coffees and a table waiting.
He’s not sure what feels better, that Kurt is taking care of him or that Kurt knows him so well he can surprise Blaine, when everyone else has such a difficult time of it. He smiles -- he smiles intentionally, he wants to smile, but he can’t help smiling, either, it is an unconscious response to Kurt, who is amazing -- and makes his way across the room.
“Thanks, Kurt,” he says, and he can’t stop grinning. “Is one of those for me?”
“Maybe.” Kurt is coy, and it is delightful. Blaine never knew these little games, these little moments, could mean so much or could feel so good. Could feel so much, until he is giddy and dizzy from it. “That all depends.”
Anything. Whatever he wants, Blaine will give him. Blaine will give his boyfriend. He can’t get enough of thinking about it -- boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, Kurt is his boyfriend -- and he’s pretty sure David is going to steal Wes’ gavel and beat him half to death if he doesn’t stop mooning over Kurt when they’re supposed to be studying.
“Depends on what?” Blaine asks as he sits, and he can’t stop looking at Kurt. His cheeks ache, he’s still smiling so hard, but he doesn’t care, because this is Kurt. (His boyfriend.)
Kurt smiles, and Blaine digs his thumbnails into the side of his fingers, because oh, it should be illegal how gorgeous, how sexy, Kurt is.
“On whether you’ll go to prom with me.”
Yes, yes, yes fills his head in time with his pulse. He reaches for Kurt, takes his hands, runs his thumbs along the insides of Kurt’s wrists. “Of course I will,” he says, joy blooming inside. Yes, anything, yes.
4.
“The truth is,” Blaine says, the words sticky and slow on his tongue, “I’ve never really been anyone’s boyfriend.” Admitting that is so much harder than he thought it would be. He’s honest with Kurt, like he is all his friends, but it’s not the same telling Kurt as it is telling Wes and David. Telling any of the Warblers, if they asked, and most of them don’t.
But Kurt -- Kurt looks at him like he knows things. Like he knows everything. Like he is perfection descended from on high. Blaine knows he isn’t actually perfect, he is very aware of all the ways he’s flawed: his temper and his fear and his over-enthusiastic way of flinging himself into the things he loves and his inability to see what’s right in front of him.
Kurt is right in front of him, honest and blunt, no accusations, no recriminations, just this boy admitting he thought something was happening that wasn’t. Admitting he wanted something Blaine hadn’t consciously offered.
“My neither,” Kurt says, so gentle, as if he’s more worried about hurting Blaine than being hurt. And after everything Blaine knows about what he went through at McKinley, the fact that he’s so kind in this, so protective, so strong -- Blaine has never actually thought him weak, but he realizes he keeps looking for a certain fragility in Kurt, and yes, he has his moments, of course he does, but really, he isn’t something broken to be repaired. He was threatened and he was scared, but he is brave and strong too.
All this time, Blaine thought he had to fill a particular role in Kurt’s life. He was the mentor and then he became the friend, but he’s had tunnel vision only focused on that. Now he takes the time to really look at Kurt, at how they are together, at what they’re helping each other become.
Blaine doesn’t always know how to be the person he wants to be, even though he’s gotten pretty good at faking it. Kurt isn’t always the person Blaine thinks he is. Standing in the Lima Bean, miscommunication laid out between them, it’s like a light is shining onto Blaine, driving the shadows out of the corners of his rigid world.
He didn’t even realize he was lost in a maze, but now he thinks sometime soon, he’ll find his way free, Kurt by his side.
5.
There’s a beautiful, broken boy in front of him, and Blaine is struck so hard with compassion and sympathy and empathy that he can’t breathe. At last, perhaps, he can make up for running away.
4.
Valentine’s Day is cold and gray and gloomy. It matches Blaine’s mood when he first wakes up, the sting of his embarrassment and Jeremiah’s rejection and the ridiculous way he blew something as simple as coffee into a relationship. They never even talked the way he does with Kurt.
Kurt.
He shies away from thinking about that, about Kurt’s simple, heartfelt declaration, and the way he so bravely said exactly what he meant. Blaine doesn’t know how to do that; he’s bad with words unless they were written by someone else, unless he’s singing and dancing and backed up by his friends.
Wes and David sit with him at breakfast and don’t say anything about the way he morosely stares into his coffee cup.
#
The sun comes out during rehearsal, shining in through the windows, and Blaine starts smiling before he realizes it.
#
At Breadstix, Kurt watches his friends with an expression so full of love and so full of longing, Blaine realizes two very important things he does not know how to handle. Kurt Hummel loves deeply and loyally and will not stay at Dalton forever.
And Blaine will miss him immensely when he goes, because Kurt has somehow become one of the most important people in his life.
3.
Kurt laughs a little later, half swallowing the sound as if he’s trying to hide it. Blaine isn’t certain how long they’ve sat there, holding hands and beaming at each other and talking quietly about prom, but his back actually hurts from leaning across the table. He doesn’t care, not with Kurt right there, not with his hands so warm and soft beneath Blaine’s fingers.
“Yes?” Blaine asks.
“We wasted our coffees.” It takes Blaine a second to realize what he means, and then Blaine laughs too, because they’ve been so caught up in each other they forgot about their coffees, the steam slowly dissipating as they grew cold, and because he’s still so caught up in Kurt he wants to laugh and dance and leap onto furniture and shout it from as high as he can climb, My boyfriend, he’s my boyfriend!
“Now they’re iced coffees,” Blaine says and squeezes Kurt’s hands. “Nothing’s ever wasted with you.”
Kurt’s cheeks look a little pink, but he squeezes Blaine’s hands right back.
2.
As chaperones, Mr. Schuester and Ms. Pillsbury are kind of bad. It’s sweet, the way they circle each other, a pseudo-dance that eventually becomes real. It’s then, while they spin around the dance floor, smiling sappily at each other, that Kurt takes Blaine’s hand and leans in close.
His breath is warm against Blaine’s cheek when he murmurs, “Come with me.”
It doesn’t matter where; Blaine will follow him anywhere just to see a smile, just to hear him sing, just to be with someone who knows him so well, who gives as good as he gets in everything, sarcasm and snark and sweetness and support.
In the elevator, Kurt pushes the button for the eleventh floor. There are parties going on all over, but Blaine also knows most of the glee club got rooms near each other on the sixth floor, and Kurt holds his hand very tight.
Upstairs, the hallway is quiet, all the doors closed.
“Kurt?” he asks, and he doesn’t dare let himself hope where this is going. “What are we doing up here?”
Kurt stops abruptly. Blaine doesn’t stop quite fast enough and takes another step. As he’s turning back, Kurt steps into him, edging him into the door. Kurt leans into him, until he can feel the length of their bodies pressed together.
When Kurt’s mouth slants across his, warm and firm, and his hands curl steady at Blaine’s hips, that’s answer enough.
1.
He hears his parents talking that night when he goes to get a glass of ice water, his throat so dry with nerves -- with anticipation and fear -- that he can’t sleep.
“It’s about that boy,” his father says, and his mother makes a low sound caught somewhere between a laugh and a sigh.
“It is,” she says, and Blaine freezes, because it’s not, but then she continues, “but it’s more than that too.”
His father sets something down -- from the sharp sound of it, a glass on the nightstand -- and grumbles words Blaine can’t quite make out. Then he adds, “I just want him to be safe and happy.”
“I know.” Silence a moment. “Happy is, I think, what he wants more than safe.”
Blaine sneaks away then, his heart full.
0.
Kurt presses warm, wet paper towels to Blaine’s face, wiping away the last of the slushy. He’s frowning hard, his mouth a thin line, his lips pressed so tight together they’ve gone pale at the corners.
Blaine gently grabs one of Kurt’s wrists, pressing his fingers against the delicate, sharp bones there. Kurt blinks, and his expression eases a little, some of the tension runs out of the set of his shoulders.
When Blaine kisses him, Kurt’s mouth goes soft against his, and he can taste the sweet-bitter bite of fake blueberry on his own lips, until Kurt slicks it away with his kisses and the slide of his tongue against Blaine’s.
Anger and frustration and worry still twist inside Blaine, but stronger and far more important is how he loves Kurt so.
This entry was original posted at http://escritoireazul.dreamwidth.org/333432.html with
comments. Reply here or there.
I wanted to write about a chromatic character, and in a way, I did, but in a way I didn't, too, because the show has never flat out acknowledged that Blaine is biracial, though there was that little hipster racism comment by Rachel in "Blame It On the Alcohol." Still, this story is informed by my belief that he is biracial.
No one guessed that this was mine, which is the first time I've done something like this and no one got it. (And despite there being a blink-and-you'll-miss-it glimpse of the badass foursome I so love.) I can't decide if that's because I've only posted one other Blaine-pov story, so my Blaine voice isn't fully established in the minds of readers, if I managed to not sound like myself (doubt it), or if the people who are the best at guessing just don't read Glee (this is my guess). We'll see what happens during Yuletide.
Anyway, here's the fic.
Title: Arpeggio (The Broken Chord of Love Remix)
Author: escritoireazul
Written for: flyingcarpet for Remix Redux 9: Love Potion No. 9
Based on: Right Now
Characters/Pairings: Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel
Word count: 3000+
Rating: 13+
Summary: One moment has led to all other moments for Kurt and Blaine.
0.
The first day of senior year, Blaine holds his boyfriend’s hand tight as bright blue slushy drips from his eyelashes and slides down his neck into the collar of his shirt. It's so cold his skin aches from it, and his whole body goes tight. Part of him wants to run straight back to Dalton, where he was protected and popular, and part of him wants to lash out, to hit that jock until he goes down and stays down.
Through it all, Kurt's fingers are strong against Blaine's.
1.
Blaine stares at the transfer papers. The edges flutter, like they’ve been caught in a breeze, but he’s inside and not standing near an air conditioner vent. Then he realizes how badly he’s shaking.
His parents sit side by side on the couch, holding hands. They’re watching him, and if he looked at their faces, maybe he would have a better idea of what they’re thinking, but he can’t do it. He can’t. He’s barely managed this much. Just telling them what he wants -- just finding words is a struggle when he’s so shaken by it himself.
“Honey, look at me.” His mother waits to continue until he finally drags his gaze up and meets her eyes. “You’re certain you want this?”
He nods, sharp and fast, because if he hesitates, he’ll lose this moment, lose their support, lose this chance.
“Okay.” She's holding his father’s hand in her left hand; she reaches for Blaine with her right. He clutches at her fingers, the rattle of the papers loud now, and lets her tie them together, between what Blaine is and what his father wants; between what his father is and what Blaine wants; between everything they’ve ever given him to keep him safe and what he thinks he now needs.
His father sighs, heavy and sad, but nods. “Okay,” he agrees, and just like that, the weight of everything he is and wants to be, of everything he left behind and now chases, settles onto him.
2.
Blaine has very particular ideas about the final formal dance of his junior year of high school, but none of them are anything at all like reality. He does not attend the Dalton Academy-Crawford County Day Spring Formal which takes place at the same fancy hotel as it does every year, because if there is one thing Dalton and Crawford do well -- and there are many -- it is tradition.
But tradition goes on without Blaine -- with him, too, the way the Warblers keep texting him pictures all night; his favorite is the one of Wes, David, and their girlfriends, all four of them grinning so big. It is the first time in weeks -- since Kurt transferred back to McKinley -- that Blaine has seen Wes smile like that, instead of watching him with a somber expression and a knowing look in his eyes. Blaine has not yet admitted to himself what Wes has already tried to accept -- because Blaine is with his boyfriend at the William McKinley High School Junior-Senior Prom. The Lima Hilton is no Lincoln Colonial, and the decorations -- crepe paper and balloon arches and glitter explosions -- do nothing to add any class to the largest conference room. The only people Blaine knows are the members of New Directions, and despite his date and drunken kisses with Rachel, of them, he only knows Kurt well.
No matter, because right by Kurt’s side -- by his boyfriend's side, his boyfriend, his boyfriend, the word is still so new and so wonderful -- is exactly where he wants to be.
#
Kurt looks amazing. Blaine tries to tell him that when he comes down the stairs at the Hummel-Hudson house -- it's a moment right out of the sappiest teen romance, and that is another thing Blaine did not expect -- but his tongue feels too big for his mouth and his throat goes dry and all the blood in his head rushes south.
Blaine likes the precision of school uniforms, the sharp layers and a perfectly knotted tie. He likes the way he looks with his classmates, with the Warblers, all of them just so. He may sing the majority of the solos, he may dance in front of them and leap onto furniture, but every moment in that uniform feels like another moment he belongs.
But faced with Kurt, Kurt and his outfits which are sometimes charming and sometimes beautiful and sometimes absurd, Kurt and all the myriad ways he expresses himself without opening his mouth to say a single word, Blaine thinks he might someday understand why people love -- why Kurt loves -- fashion so.
Watching Kurt come down the stairs in his kilt, the crisp white shirt tucked into it, the jacket cut to accentuate his shoulders, and his tall black boots hugging his legs, Blaine is struck by two thoughts nearly simultaneously: He’s safe in his uniform, and bound.
His boyfriend is the hottest guy on the damn planet.
#
“And smile!” The photographer is chipper, his voice too loud and too bright. The backdrop is ridiculous, a moonlit gazebo that does not look real at all -- it looks, maybe, like a parody of a joke about a real gazebo -- and the lights are oddly positioned, but Blaine squeezes Kurt’s hand and steps into place. He can’t stop looking at Kurt -- looking up into his eyes and looking down to check out his ass in that kilt -- and he can’t stop grinning.
Kurt puts his arm around Blaine’s shoulders, squeezing him close, his grip almost too hard and too tight. Blaine rubs one hand along the small of Kurt’s back, relax and peace and I’m so glad I’m here with you in a simple touch.
The great big flash dazzles him when it goes off, but nothing, nothing, is better than the way Kurt takes his hand again and smiles at him, a smug little curl of his mouth that makes Blaine want to kiss him and makes all his thoughts run to all the wicked things they have done and all they have yet to do.
#
Prom feels like it lasts forever, and at the same time, it goes so fast. Toward the end of the night, Kurt dances with Mercedes and Rachel to Ke$ha’s “Blow.” Blaine keeps dancing, too, even though he’s incredibly distracted by Kurt’s every move -- that shimmy is sexy; that slow lift of the hip is sexy; the hint of tongue against his lip is sexy -- because they’re surrounded by most of the rest of New Directions -- Lauren and Puck disappeared a couple songs back, and thirty seconds ago, Tina looped her arms around Mike’s neck, whispered something in his ear, and the two of them slipped away from the dance floor too -- and he likes dancing with them, the way they all sparkle and shine under the spinning colored lights, different and unbound, but beautiful, every last one.
While Blaine is distracted watching Kurt spin Mercedes, Finn sneaks up on him, which is quite an accomplishment, considering he’s a giant. But he manages it; one moment he’s not there and the next he is, swaying awkwardly back and forth. It takes Blaine a second to realize he’s dancing.
“Hello, Finn.” It’s always a good idea to be polite to your boyfriend’s brother. Blaine’s pleased with how quick he’s picking up all these ways to be a good boyfriend.
“Hi.” Blaine does a smooth little step and turn, not really bothered by Finn’s boring back and forth, but when they’re facing each other again, Finn leans in close, stopping him from any more slick dance moves. “I’m not going to threaten you.”
Blaine raises his eyebrows. “Thank you?”
“But.” Of course there’s a but. Blaine waits, patient, his eyes steady on Finn’s face. “It’s Prom. There’s certain things people expect at,” he stops. It takes him a second to start again. “Kurt is special, and he deserves special.”
“I agree.” He reaches up and places his hand lightly on Finn’s shoulder. Finn nods fast, and it’s clear he’s not entirely comfortable with his brother’s boyfriend touching him in front of everyone while they dance -- sort of dance, at least -- but he doesn’t shove Blaine’s hand off and he doesn’t move away.
“Good.”
“Good.”
“Good?” Kurt dances up to them, one eyebrow lifted as he looks at them. Blaine grins and turns to his boyfriend, his hand falling away from Finn. The music changes, slows, and he holds out his hands, offering the dance to Kurt, offering himself.
3.
One of his aunts once told Blaine on time meant you were late and ever since, he’s been careful to always arrive five minutes early if he can. Kurt still beats him to the Lima Bean, and by enough time that when Blaine spots him, he has two coffees and a table waiting.
He’s not sure what feels better, that Kurt is taking care of him or that Kurt knows him so well he can surprise Blaine, when everyone else has such a difficult time of it. He smiles -- he smiles intentionally, he wants to smile, but he can’t help smiling, either, it is an unconscious response to Kurt, who is amazing -- and makes his way across the room.
“Thanks, Kurt,” he says, and he can’t stop grinning. “Is one of those for me?”
“Maybe.” Kurt is coy, and it is delightful. Blaine never knew these little games, these little moments, could mean so much or could feel so good. Could feel so much, until he is giddy and dizzy from it. “That all depends.”
Anything. Whatever he wants, Blaine will give him. Blaine will give his boyfriend. He can’t get enough of thinking about it -- boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, Kurt is his boyfriend -- and he’s pretty sure David is going to steal Wes’ gavel and beat him half to death if he doesn’t stop mooning over Kurt when they’re supposed to be studying.
“Depends on what?” Blaine asks as he sits, and he can’t stop looking at Kurt. His cheeks ache, he’s still smiling so hard, but he doesn’t care, because this is Kurt. (His boyfriend.)
Kurt smiles, and Blaine digs his thumbnails into the side of his fingers, because oh, it should be illegal how gorgeous, how sexy, Kurt is.
“On whether you’ll go to prom with me.”
Yes, yes, yes fills his head in time with his pulse. He reaches for Kurt, takes his hands, runs his thumbs along the insides of Kurt’s wrists. “Of course I will,” he says, joy blooming inside. Yes, anything, yes.
4.
“The truth is,” Blaine says, the words sticky and slow on his tongue, “I’ve never really been anyone’s boyfriend.” Admitting that is so much harder than he thought it would be. He’s honest with Kurt, like he is all his friends, but it’s not the same telling Kurt as it is telling Wes and David. Telling any of the Warblers, if they asked, and most of them don’t.
But Kurt -- Kurt looks at him like he knows things. Like he knows everything. Like he is perfection descended from on high. Blaine knows he isn’t actually perfect, he is very aware of all the ways he’s flawed: his temper and his fear and his over-enthusiastic way of flinging himself into the things he loves and his inability to see what’s right in front of him.
Kurt is right in front of him, honest and blunt, no accusations, no recriminations, just this boy admitting he thought something was happening that wasn’t. Admitting he wanted something Blaine hadn’t consciously offered.
“My neither,” Kurt says, so gentle, as if he’s more worried about hurting Blaine than being hurt. And after everything Blaine knows about what he went through at McKinley, the fact that he’s so kind in this, so protective, so strong -- Blaine has never actually thought him weak, but he realizes he keeps looking for a certain fragility in Kurt, and yes, he has his moments, of course he does, but really, he isn’t something broken to be repaired. He was threatened and he was scared, but he is brave and strong too.
All this time, Blaine thought he had to fill a particular role in Kurt’s life. He was the mentor and then he became the friend, but he’s had tunnel vision only focused on that. Now he takes the time to really look at Kurt, at how they are together, at what they’re helping each other become.
Blaine doesn’t always know how to be the person he wants to be, even though he’s gotten pretty good at faking it. Kurt isn’t always the person Blaine thinks he is. Standing in the Lima Bean, miscommunication laid out between them, it’s like a light is shining onto Blaine, driving the shadows out of the corners of his rigid world.
He didn’t even realize he was lost in a maze, but now he thinks sometime soon, he’ll find his way free, Kurt by his side.
5.
There’s a beautiful, broken boy in front of him, and Blaine is struck so hard with compassion and sympathy and empathy that he can’t breathe. At last, perhaps, he can make up for running away.
4.
Valentine’s Day is cold and gray and gloomy. It matches Blaine’s mood when he first wakes up, the sting of his embarrassment and Jeremiah’s rejection and the ridiculous way he blew something as simple as coffee into a relationship. They never even talked the way he does with Kurt.
Kurt.
He shies away from thinking about that, about Kurt’s simple, heartfelt declaration, and the way he so bravely said exactly what he meant. Blaine doesn’t know how to do that; he’s bad with words unless they were written by someone else, unless he’s singing and dancing and backed up by his friends.
Wes and David sit with him at breakfast and don’t say anything about the way he morosely stares into his coffee cup.
#
The sun comes out during rehearsal, shining in through the windows, and Blaine starts smiling before he realizes it.
#
At Breadstix, Kurt watches his friends with an expression so full of love and so full of longing, Blaine realizes two very important things he does not know how to handle. Kurt Hummel loves deeply and loyally and will not stay at Dalton forever.
And Blaine will miss him immensely when he goes, because Kurt has somehow become one of the most important people in his life.
3.
Kurt laughs a little later, half swallowing the sound as if he’s trying to hide it. Blaine isn’t certain how long they’ve sat there, holding hands and beaming at each other and talking quietly about prom, but his back actually hurts from leaning across the table. He doesn’t care, not with Kurt right there, not with his hands so warm and soft beneath Blaine’s fingers.
“Yes?” Blaine asks.
“We wasted our coffees.” It takes Blaine a second to realize what he means, and then Blaine laughs too, because they’ve been so caught up in each other they forgot about their coffees, the steam slowly dissipating as they grew cold, and because he’s still so caught up in Kurt he wants to laugh and dance and leap onto furniture and shout it from as high as he can climb, My boyfriend, he’s my boyfriend!
“Now they’re iced coffees,” Blaine says and squeezes Kurt’s hands. “Nothing’s ever wasted with you.”
Kurt’s cheeks look a little pink, but he squeezes Blaine’s hands right back.
2.
As chaperones, Mr. Schuester and Ms. Pillsbury are kind of bad. It’s sweet, the way they circle each other, a pseudo-dance that eventually becomes real. It’s then, while they spin around the dance floor, smiling sappily at each other, that Kurt takes Blaine’s hand and leans in close.
His breath is warm against Blaine’s cheek when he murmurs, “Come with me.”
It doesn’t matter where; Blaine will follow him anywhere just to see a smile, just to hear him sing, just to be with someone who knows him so well, who gives as good as he gets in everything, sarcasm and snark and sweetness and support.
In the elevator, Kurt pushes the button for the eleventh floor. There are parties going on all over, but Blaine also knows most of the glee club got rooms near each other on the sixth floor, and Kurt holds his hand very tight.
Upstairs, the hallway is quiet, all the doors closed.
“Kurt?” he asks, and he doesn’t dare let himself hope where this is going. “What are we doing up here?”
Kurt stops abruptly. Blaine doesn’t stop quite fast enough and takes another step. As he’s turning back, Kurt steps into him, edging him into the door. Kurt leans into him, until he can feel the length of their bodies pressed together.
When Kurt’s mouth slants across his, warm and firm, and his hands curl steady at Blaine’s hips, that’s answer enough.
1.
He hears his parents talking that night when he goes to get a glass of ice water, his throat so dry with nerves -- with anticipation and fear -- that he can’t sleep.
“It’s about that boy,” his father says, and his mother makes a low sound caught somewhere between a laugh and a sigh.
“It is,” she says, and Blaine freezes, because it’s not, but then she continues, “but it’s more than that too.”
His father sets something down -- from the sharp sound of it, a glass on the nightstand -- and grumbles words Blaine can’t quite make out. Then he adds, “I just want him to be safe and happy.”
“I know.” Silence a moment. “Happy is, I think, what he wants more than safe.”
Blaine sneaks away then, his heart full.
0.
Kurt presses warm, wet paper towels to Blaine’s face, wiping away the last of the slushy. He’s frowning hard, his mouth a thin line, his lips pressed so tight together they’ve gone pale at the corners.
Blaine gently grabs one of Kurt’s wrists, pressing his fingers against the delicate, sharp bones there. Kurt blinks, and his expression eases a little, some of the tension runs out of the set of his shoulders.
When Blaine kisses him, Kurt’s mouth goes soft against his, and he can taste the sweet-bitter bite of fake blueberry on his own lips, until Kurt slicks it away with his kisses and the slide of his tongue against Blaine’s.
Anger and frustration and worry still twist inside Blaine, but stronger and far more important is how he loves Kurt so.
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