Fic: Glee: Bushwick Game Night (Kurt/Blaine, PG-13
This has been my silly go-to fic for weeks now on days when I didn’t have the time to concentrate on anything big. It started with me writing microcommentary on that 3x01 scene of Kurt and Blaine in the Lima Bean where Kurt teases Blaine with, “I know what it does to you when I win,” and I said something about how I wanted to write about Bushwick game nights in the future. So I did. Somehow it’s turned out to be over eight thousand words long, which is a shock to me.
Endless thanks to Stoney for cheering me on and laughing at my jokes. I owe her tons. The check is in the mail, my dear!
It’s silly Bushwick futurefic fun. Pictionary and smack talk with Kurt, Blaine, Rachel, Santana, Dani, and Sam.
Title: "Bushwick Game Night" [on the AO3]
Author: flaming muse
Fandom: Glee
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine, Santana/Dani
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 8,200
Summary: Pictionary in the Bushwick loft is serious business.
Spoilers: Bushwick futurefic, set sometime in fall 2013, spoilers assumed through but not past 5x07 (“Puppet Master”)
Disclaimers: The characters belong to various corporate Powers That Be. I make absolutely no profit from playing with them.
Distribution: Please ask.
Feedback is lovely!
Kicking off his shoes, Kurt sets his glass of soda down on the coffee table as Blaine walks over from the kitchen toward his usual spot beside him on the couch.
Kurt finds himself smiling a little that even with more of them in the loft they have usual spots for watching TV or hanging out. It’s not that they don’t all move around, but more often than not Blaine gravitates to his side, his warm weight leaning more against him as the evening progresses, relaxed and happy, so simple. It fills something deep inside Kurt, makes him feel settled and content, his breath coming out soft as Blaine shoots him an easy smile before lowering himself down toward the cushion -
“Oh, no,” Santana says, arresting Blaine’s descent with her words from the other end of the couch. “Not going to happen. Take your perky, unnaturally round ass somewhere else.”
“Excuse me?” Kurt asks, his eyebrows lifting in in sharp surprise.
“You’re one to talk about perky and unnaturally round asses, Santana,” Rachel says.
Blaine stands slowly back up and turns toward Santana in confusion; Kurt’s fingers itch to pull him right down where he belongs. He very deliberately does not look at Blaine’s admittedly extremely nice ass.
“If I’m going to be forced to sit through this lame G-rated game night - “ Santana gestures over to where Rachel is carefully cleaning the big whiteboard they’ve pulled out and propped on top of the television. “ - without alcohol or an amazing prize for winning at the end of it, then I’m not playing against Lady Hummel and his little dwarf prince with their mystical gay mind-reading powers. So move along. Shoo. Scram.”
“I love game night,” Dani says from the kitchen where she’s filling a bowl with chips from a bag. “And so do you.”
Santana shoots her what is probably supposed to be a quelling glare, but Dani just smiles at her.
“Did you want to be on our team?” Blaine asks Santana, far too kindly to Kurt’s ears.
Santana crosses her arms over her impressive chest, leans back into the corner of the couch, and says, “No, I want you two to be on separate teams this time. Make it fair for the rest of us for a change.”
“It is nice to mix things up,” Rachel says. She wipes firmly at a little smudge of dried marker at the top left corner of the whiteboard.
Kurt’s eyebrows rise higher as he looks up at Blaine. It’s not that they can’t play against each other on game night; they just usually don’t. More importantly, he doesn’t think Santana should get to choose for them.
“Blaine can play on my team,” Sam says as he flops happily into a chair. “Bro power! Nightbird and the Blond Chameleon together again!”
Blaine shoots him a little grin before turning back to Kurt. He hesitates before asking him carefully, “Are you okay with that?”
The concern for him in Blaine’s question makes Kurt’s eyes narrow. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Blaine tips his head like he’s considering his answer, which makes Kurt’s eyes narrow even more.
“Can you handle it?” Kurt asks him in challenge.
“Are you two really too codependent to go up against each other?” Santana asks them.
“Please, Santana,” Kurt says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I just want to be sure we don’t repeat the all-night Monopoly game of my senior year. It was brutal and bitter. Neither of us wanted to concede defeat. My dad and Carole threw up their hands and went to watch TV at nine, Finn gave up at ten, and Blaine and I played right up to curfew at midnight.” A smile twists painfully out of him at the memory of all of his family together at the dining room table, laughing like they didn’t have a care in the world, no idea that so much would be taken from them the next year. He’s glad for the memory, but he wishes it didn’t have to hurt.
“I won,” Blaine says proudly, rocking forward on his toes.
“I let you win so you could go home without being eaten alive by the tension of our unfinished competition,” Kurt says. The quick, dirty blow job he’d been duty bound to give as the loser hadn’t exactly been a hardship, either, after they’d been flirtily snarking at each other for hours over utility companies, luxury hotels, and dreams of Park Place.
Blaine’s smile turns into a challenging smirk, pretty much the same one Kurt had seen from him that night. There’s something comfortable within it for Kurt, knowing that Blaine loves him but knowing as well that Blaine won’t back down when he thinks he can win a game. They both like to be the best at things, after all. “You keep telling yourself that.”
“I will,” Kurt replies firmly, feeling his blood heat at Blaine’s words, “because it’s true.”
Blaine laughs. “I don’t think so.”
Kurt crosses his arms over his chest. “That’s ridiculous. You really think I would have mortgaged Boardwalk to put a hotel on Marvin Gardens? Boardwalk?”
“I know how you feel about hotels, Kurt,” Blaine says, not losing that smirk at all. He leans in a little, his voice dropping and his eyes smouldering. “You can’t resist them.”
Kurt’s indignation is the perfect antidote to that too-appealing tone of voice and the bit of truth wrapped up in it. He really does like hotels, both in life and in games.
“Wait a minute,” Santana says. “You stayed up all night with no parents around and actually played Monopoly? What the fuck is wrong with you boys? By this point I know for a fact neither of you is actually smooth like a Ken doll down there, as much as I’d like to erase the time I walked in on - ”
“Anyway!” Rachel says briskly, arranging the whiteboard markers neatly on the table and breaking off however Santana was going to finish that sentence. “Let’s pick teams.”
“Let’s,” Kurt bites out, still watching Blaine.
“You. Over there.” Santana points across the room and raises her eyebrows at Blaine.
Blaine looks over at Kurt again, not like he’s asking permission but like he’s gauging his reaction.
“As much as Santana shouldn’t get to decide these things,” Kurt says, “I’m offended enough that you don’t believe that I let you win that I’m going to have to insist that you join Sam over there.” He pastes on a tight, fierce smile. “Try not to be too upset when we crush you.”
“Then I’m on Kurt’s team,” Rachel says, plopping down beside him, and Kurt’s smile turns absolutely smug, because she’s almost as good as Blaine when it comes to being on the same page as him. They understand each other very well.
“Wait a minute,” Santana says in dismay. “That’s not any better. She’s like Blaine Junior.”
“Actually, I prefer to think of Blaine as the male me,” Rachel says. She smooths down her skirt and curls up against Kurt.
She elbows him when Kurt mutters in some horror, “Well, that’s disturbing.” He turns to her, hopefully putting that tender bit of his rib out of her range in the process. “What? It is.”
“Or you just have excellent taste in friends that transcends gender,” she says and slides in closer.
It’s nothing at all like he feels when Blaine’s at his side, but it’s still cozy and familiar to have Rachel beside him, this person he’s held onto for years through tough times and good ones, and he adjusts his arm so she fits there better.
“Still - “ Santana starts.
“You can’t pick all of the teams, Santana.” Dani takes the chair beside Sam and offers him the big bowl in her hand. “That’s not fair.”
“And if you’re splitting up Kurt and Blaine it wouldn’t be fair for you to be on Dani’s team,” Rachel says.
Santana stares at them both, her mouth open, and then says, “Fine, then I’m on Team Hummelberry, because I might as well get to take advantage of your weird gay-to-honorary-gay mind meld.”
“Yay, I’m with Blaine and Sam!” Dani says.
“Dude, this is going to be awesome,” Sam says around a mouthful of chips.
“Okay,” Rachel says, sitting forward as Blaine sits on the floor between Sam and Dani. “I took the liberty of printing out a bunch of classic movie titles so that there’s no way anyone can sneak in porn titles again.”
“Watching you try to you draw ‘Deep Throat’ was hilarious, though,” Santana drawls.
Rachel’s cheeks turn pink, but she soldiers on. “These are all well-known classics that we all should be familiar with, drawn from a range of genres.” She flips open the lid on a hat box Kurt has donated - temporarily - to the game to reveal dozens of neatly folded slips of paper inside.
“But how is that fair if you know all of the answers?” Santana asks.
“I promise I didn’t look at them when I cut them out,” Rachel says primly. “I found a page on Pinterest and printed it out. You really can find everything on there.”
“Besides,” Kurt reminds Santana under his breath, “she’s on our team.” Not that he doesn’t want to win fairly, because he absolutely does want to have full and complete bragging rights without a hint of scandal, but he doesn’t see why she should be complaining about having an advantage.
Sam digs in the front pocket of his jeans. “Flip to see which team goes first?” he asks.
“I still think we should have a sing-off for it,” Rachel says, and Blaine nods along with her. Kurt steadfastly ignores them both and refuses to think of their similarities.
“Call it in the air,” Sam says, brandishing a quarter and flipping it up in front of him.
“Tails!” Dani says.
Rachel pounds her fist against Kurt’s thigh. “I wanted tails,” she hisses under her breath.
“Well, don’t take it out on me,” he says back, rubbing his leg. For someone with such small hands, she can hit quite hard.
Sam catches the coin, smacks it against his arm, and announces, “Heads.”
“Yes!” Rachel crows and jumps to her feet.
Kurt shakes his head in disbelief.
“We’ll go first!” Rachel says. “Who should draw? Should I draw? No, this isn’t charades. Kurt, you should draw. You have an innate talent for the visual arts as well as performance. My gifts are more specialized and focused.”
“Thank you?” As Rachel drops back into her spot on the couch, Kurt stands up beside the board and pulls a slip of paper from the hat box. He knows he’s not allowed to speak, but he can’t help the smug smile that sweeps onto his face. This one will be a snap.
“Ready?” Dani asks.
Kurt nods.
“Aaaand go,” Dani says, flipping the little timer over.
Still smiling to himself, he uncaps the marker and draws an oval topped with a swirling flourish. This is so, so simple. He allows himself a quick glance over at Blaine, who is going to lose.
And as expected, by the time he gets to the fourth little circle under the oval Rachel is crying out, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s!”
Turning on his heel with satisfaction, Kurt hands the paper to Dani for confirmation and happily taps the cap back onto the marker with the flat of his hand.
“Wow, that was what? Ten seconds?” Dani says, her eyebrows raised in amazement.
“How do you get Breakfast at Tiffany’s from a squiggle and a few dots?” Santana squints at the whiteboard.
“Obviously that’s Audrey Hepburn,” Blaine says, and Kurt smiles at him proudly, because yes, obviously it is.
“Excellent start,” Rachel tells Kurt, patting his leg much more gently when he sits back down.
“Thank you,” he murmurs in reply.
“So who wants to draw?” Dani asks Sam and Blaine.
“I will.” Blaine stands up from the floor and goes over to the whiteboard, carefully erasing Kurt’s drawing before pulling a slip of paper from the box. “Ready.”
“Go,” Santana says and tips over the timer.
Blaine reads the paper and nods to himself, then tucks the paper into the front pocket of his distractingly well-fitted jeans and draws a circle.
“Moon,” Sam says. “Circle. Sphere. Rock.”
Blaine points to him excitedly and taps his marker on the circle.
“Rock! Okay!” Dani says.
“School of Rock. Rock of Ages. ‘Rock the Casbah’. ‘Rock Me, Amadeus’,” Sam says, leaning forward in his chair.
Dani reaches out and put her hand on his arm. “Slow down,” she tells him. “Take a breath.”
“And try to remember this is movie titles and not song titles,” Santana mutters; Rachel shushes her.
“Rocky,” Sam suggests.
Blaine shakes his head.
“Rocky Horror Picture Show,” says Dani.
“Rocky II,” Sam says, bouncing a little as he leans excitedly over his legs. Rocky III. Rocky IV. Rocky V!”
Blaine takes a breath that sounds frustrated to Kurt’s ears and draws a slanted line on the board, under the rock.
“Rock slash?” Sam suggests. “Rock line? Rock wall. Rock climbing.”
“Movie titles, Sam,” Blaine reminds him.
Rachel waves at Blaine and says, “No talking! The person drawing can’t talk!”
Blaine takes another breath and points at the circle again with his pen. He draws some wavy lines coming out from behind the rock.
“Rock,” Dani says. “The Rock? Rock ‘n’ Roll High School?”
“You’re running out of time,” Santana says, happily swinging her foot where her leg is crossed over her knee.
“Maybe it’s a stone?” Sam says. “Romancing the Stone. Stoners, uh... Half-Baked. Dude, Where’s My Car? Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke!”
Kurt watches Blaine close his eyes under his furrowed, frustrated brow and then draw what is obviously a fedora next to the line. He draws a spiral next to it.
Kurt smiles to himself and smooths his jeans over his knees. He knows exactly what it is.
Leaning forward to watch the timer, Santana says, “Almost done...”
Blaine tenses his jaw and makes determined lines behind the rock as if showing motion; at least that’s what it looks like to Kurt.
“Lines!” Sam says, sitting forward in his chair. “Wavy lines! Blurred lines! Robin Thicke!”
Santana collapses back against the couch cushions and says, “Movie titles, Sam. And also, you’re out of time.”
“Damn it.” Sam slaps his hands against the arms of his chair. “Was I close? I was close, right? I could feel it.”
“Not really,” Blaine says shortly, very precisely capping the marker. His jaw is clenched, his nostrils flared. Kurt would feel bad for him, except for the fact that it means the point is going to be his team’s instead.
“We get to guess, right? For the point?” Rachel asks.
“Oh, right, I’m supposed to be keeping score.” Dani grabs the little notebook on the coffee table and draws a few lines with the pen.
“I know what it is,” Kurt says, and Blaine looks up from where he’s stewing into the distance to meet his eyes.
Blaine raises his eyebrows in what seems to be a combination of challenge and relief that someone understands him.
“Well, that’s obviously a big rock,” Kurt begins, pointing to it. He’s drawing it out, he knows he is, but he can’t help it. He does have a flair for the theatrical, after all. He’s also feeling at least a little bit smug about it.
“Yeah, we got that part,” Sam says.
Kurt keeps his eyes on Blaine, who watches him steadily, and says, “And that’s a big ramp. The lines denote motion, like the rock is rolling. Add to that the battered fedora and the leather whip...” He hesitates, and Sam covers his face with his hands, groaning. “Indiana Jones. A big rock. Obviously it’s Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
Blaine fishes out the paper from his pocket and hands to Dani, the corner of his mouth twitching in what Kurt thinks must be respect and a little regret that he decided to question Kurt’s game-playing abilities, and goes to sit back down.
“Two points for us!” Rachel says, clapping her hands. “Who’s next?”
“I’ll draw.” Santana unfolds herself from the couch and takes her place by the whiteboard. “And if I haven’t heard of the movie I pick I’m drawing porn. I’m warning you now.”
Sam makes an interested noise, and Dani laughs and smacks him on his arm.
Santana plucks a title from the hat box and unfolds it. “Damn it, I know this one,” she mutters. “Okay.” She looks Kurt and Rachel in the eye. “Ready?”
Rachel nods. “We’re ready, Santana.”
Santana holds eye contact for another long moment. “Do not let me down here. If I have to put up with so much hair product and earnest guessing from you two, you can at least get me some quick points.”
“Just draw the damn picture,” Kurt tells her. He can feel his pulse kicking up as he gets ready to guess; it’s not quite the same level of excitement and determination as he feels before a performance, but it’s close. He still has something to prove.
Santana spins to the board, her hair flaring out behind her, and watches Dani over her shoulder until she flips over the timer. “Here we go,” she says. She starts to draw.
“Umbrella,” Rachel says as it takes shape. “Singin’ in the Rain!”
“Rain Man,” says Kurt.
“Um, what else?” Rachel says. “‘Don’t Rain on my Parade’? Funny Girl?”
Kurt tips his head to the side, his mind spinning. “Umbrella. Umbrella. Has Rihanna been in any movies?”
Santana makes a frustrated noise and scribbles something else beside it.
“A tea cup?” Rachel says.
“Oh! Downton Abbey!” Kurt calls out in excitement.
Not looking away from the board, Rachel flaps a hand at him to quiet him. “Don’t be ridiculous. That’s not a movie.”
“Godfield Park, then,” Kurt says. “Sense and Sensibility. Pride and Prejudice.”
“What do they have to do with an umbrella?” Rachel turns in her seat and asks him.
“It could be a parasol!” Kurt replies, pointing at Santana’s admittedly pretty vague scribble.
“Would you two please focus?” Santana snaps.
“Foul! The person drawing can’t talk!” Sam reminds her.
Santana shoots him a glare that promises dire retribution in the future and puts her marker back on the board. She draws something else, long with a curve on the end.
“What is that?” Rachel says, squinting at it. “A field hockey stick?”
Santana draws a line back and forth from the new picture to the tea cup.
“It’s a spoon!” Kurt realizes.
“Umbrella, spoon, and cup,” Rachel says slowly.
“Almost out of time,” Dani says with a fair amount of glee.
Kurt stares at the pictures, waiting for a pattern to appear. Umbrella, spoon, and cup. Umbrella, spoon and cup...
“Ooh, we’re going to get a chance to steal,” Sam says, patting Blaine’s shoulder in excitement; his eyes fixed on the drawing, Blaine nods back at him.
“Three, two...” Dani counts down.
In an instant of glory, all of the clues click into place in Kurt’s mind. “Mary Poppins!” he cries, almost bouncing out of his seat. “A spoonful of sugar! It’s Mary Poppins.”
Santana turns on her heel to face the other team. “That’s right. Mary motherfucking Poppins.” She drops the marker on the table like a microphone, flops into her seat at the end of the couch, and crosses her legs. Legs shouldn’t look so satisfied, but somehow hers do.
“Wow,” Sam says, blinking at her.
“I’m not sure the movie’s ever been called that before,” Blaine says slowly, his eyes wide.
“Make sure you aren’t so overcome by how good we are that you forget to put our point on there,” Santana tells Dani, gesturing at the notepad with a regal flick of her hand.
Dani leans over and marks the paper as Sam asks Blaine, “Does this kind of feel like Team Gryffindor vs. Team Slytherin to you?”
Blaine glances over at Kurt, who raises his eyebrows in return. Slytherin? Really? Having talents doesn’t make a person evil. “I don’t really think of Kurt being Slytherin,” Blaine says, but he doesn’t sound convinced.
Kurt’s eyes narrow, and he crosses his arms over his chest as Blaine looks away, clearly too uncomfortable to maintain eye contact.
Santana claps her hands together briskly. “Enough chit-chat. Which one of you suckers is drawing next?”
“Santana,” Rachel says a little more gently. “We haven’t won yet. It isn’t nice to gloat.”
“First off, we’re totally going to win,” Santana tells her. “And also game night is all about gloating. Isn’t that the whole point?”
“I thought the point was us all spending time together,” Blaine says. “To have fun.”
“Gloating is fun,” Santana replies.
Dani shakes her head, more fond than frustrated, and gets up from her chair. “I’ll go next.”
The next few rounds go relatively smoothly. Blaine’s team guesses Godfather, The Graduate, and Hair, missing Apocalypse Now, which Kurt’s team can’t figure out, either, from Sam’s messy helicopter with musical notes around it, big explosions that look kind of like volcanos, and a nose over something that it turns out is supposed to be napalm.
Kurt’s team gets Citizen Kane in record time (it doesn’t take him long to draw a sled), as well as Jaws, Duck Soup, and Bride of Frankenstein.
“I still think that looks like Marge Simpson,” Sam says of Rachel’s drawing of Elsa Lanchester with her iconic wig.
“Which is why we’re pulling even further ahead of you,” Santana tells him smugly.
“Oh!” Blaine says up at the whiteboard, his whole face lighting up when he reads the next clue. He bites his lip and doesn’t speak, but he looks like he’s ready to vibrate with excitement; Kurt knows that means it’s because he loves what is written on the paper.
“Ready?” Kurt asks him with his hand on the timer.
Blaine nods quickly and as soon as Kurt’s flipped it over Blaine is making a star with his marker. He stop there and looks at Sam with his eyebrows raised hopefully.
“Star... star... Pretty Woman!” Sam says.
“What?” says Dani.
“What?!” asks Santana, turning to stare at him.
Sam shrugs at them both. “What? Star. Julia Roberts. Pretty Woman. Because she’s a big star. Duh.”
Santana snorts. “Seriously, we should have bet something on this game,” she says to the room at large. “We are so going to win. We could have gotten out of dish duty for a month.”
“Julia Roberts isn’t the first person I think of when I hear the word star,” Rachel muses.
Blaine clears his throat and points at the star again. He raises his eyebrows even higher at Sam.
“Focus, Sam,” Dani tells him, putting her hand on his arm.
Blaine points to the star one more time.
“Oh! Oh! Star Wars!” Sam shouts, and he leaps up to high five Blaine, nearly elbowing Dani in the face in the process.
“Nice!” Blaine meets him halfway and brings him in for a happy, back-clapping hug. “I knew you’d get that one!”
“That was awesome,” Sam agrees, and Kurt narrows his eyes at just how long this very enthusiastic hug seems to be going on. Not that he thinks anything is happening between them, but when was the last time Blaine hugged him for so long and with such excitement?
“I don’t even understand what happened there,” Santana says. “Dork mind meld?”
“You do realize that mind meld is a Star Trek reference, right, honey?” Dani asks. She reaches out and nudges Santana’s leg with her sock-clad toe.
Santana tips her head back against the back of the couch and sighs out heavily. “Fuck. You’re all rubbing off on me. It’s this fucking apartment. Pretty soon I’m going to be singing show tunes while I build a light saber or something. There could be matching costumes involved.”
Dani just laughs at her. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“You don’t know them as well as I do,” Santana replies. “They’re like a cult. A cult of dorkiness and musical theater.”
Kurt rises from the couch; even if there’s fondness in her voice she’s still merciless when she gets on a roll. It’s time to head it off before she gets out of control.
“I’m next,” he says, and he brushes by Blaine, accepting a smile and a lingering touch along his fingers as well as the marker Blaine offers him. “How are you doing with losing?” he asks with mostly feigned concern. “I know it can be hard on you.”
Blaine grins in reply and catches Kurt’s fingertips with his own. “We haven’t lost yet. Would you like anything from the kitchen? I’m getting another drink. I could refill your glass for you.”
Something in Kurt’s heart melts like usual at the caress and the warmth in Blaine’s eyes... until he remembers that for the moment Blaine is the enemy. He can’t afford to be weakened by his too-attractive face.
“No, thank you. I’m too hungry for the win to be thirsty for soda.” Kurt pulls his hand away and turns to dig into the hat box for a new clue. He hears Blaine’s low chuckle and sees him walk away out of the corner of his eye; at least he doesn’t seem to be offended. Kurt may want to beat him roundly, but he doesn’t actually want to do lasting damage to Blaine’s feelings.
He looks over at his team. “Ready?”
Rachel nods, her hands clasped under her chin and her gaze riveted on his face, and Santana rolls her eyes and waves her hand in a yes.
“Go,” Sam says, flipping the timer.
Focusing on the task at hand, Kurt sketches a quick pyramid and then gets to work on a thick, smoky, kohl-rimmed eye with a perfectly arched brow above it. He’s debating whether to see if he can make the right color for the eyes with the markers they have or to start in on the rest of the face with its heavy wig and crown when Rachel squeaks in her seat.
“Cleopatra!” she says. “Oh, Kurt, that’s beautiful.”
“Thank you,” Kurt says, his heart absolutely leaping from how quickly she guessed. He loves how she gets him, especially when they’re working together like this. He hands the paper to Sam and skirts the table back to his seat, hugging Rachel back when she flings her arms around him excitedly.
“We are so good at this!” she tells him, and he nods happily in reply.
“Nice,” Blaine says as he comes back with a fresh glass of water in his hand.
Dani scrunches up her face as she looks at the drawing. “Cleopatra? I thought these were supposed to be classic movies. Wasn’t that the one with the massive budget and all of those problems?”
Rachel snaps around toward her. “Not a classic? Cleopatra won Oscars, Dani!” she tells Dani fervently. “And anything with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton is automatically a classic - “
“Okay, calm down.” Kurt loops his arm around Rachel and anchors his hand at her waist to keep her from vibrating off the couch in indignation. It takes more strength than it feels like it should to keep her there, but then Rachel has always been scrappy for her size.
“Maybe I should do the next clue?” Blaine says, watching them from where he stands by the end of the couch. He carefully sets down his glass on the coffee table, his eyes fixed on Rachel with some alarm.
“Good idea,” Kurt tells him, grateful that Blaine sees just how explosive the situation could become.
Blaine nods at him and quickly makes his way to the board, erasing Kurt’s drawing with quick sweeps of his hand - his short sleeves showing off the flexing muscles of his biceps and forearms, and Kurt stares at them for an appreciative moment before sliding down to Blaine’s trim waist and then away before he gets too distracted - and then plucking another slip of paper from the hat box.
“I can’t believe you’re stopping me from explaining the importance of - “ Rachel begins to Kurt in frustration.
“Shh, it’s their turn,” he tells her, soothing her with a little pat on her hip.
“But she said - “
Kurt bends his head to her ear. “Later,” he murmurs. He can’t feel bad for what Dani will face; it’s her own fault for questioning the epicness of Elizabeth Taylor. The lengthy and detailed diatribe Rachel will surely deliver is no more than Dani deserves.
“Okay,” Blaine says, nodding to himself over the clue. He picks up a marker looks up at his team. “Is everyone ready?”
“Get to it, hobbit,” Santana says and turns over the timer.
“Okay.” Blaine nods to himself again and draws a few swirling but parallel lines.
“Raiders of the Lost Ark again?” Sam asks.
Blaine adds a pretty little spiral and then traces the lines with his marker, like he’s denoting growth or movement.
“Um...” Dani tips her head but seems to have no suggestions.
Blaine’s mouth tightens, and he ducks his chin and draws an oak leaf at one end of the lines, on its side and up a bit like it’s rising up into the air.
“Leaf?” Dani asks.
“Leaf, leaf. I can’t think of any leaf movies,” Sam says, leaning forward in his chair with his elbows on his thighs.
Scrunching her nose, Dani says, “Isn’t there an old movie called A New Leaf?”
Sam taps his fingers together between his knees. “No, uh... what about if it sounds like leaf? Leaf, leaf, leap, league! Justice League. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea!”
“A League of Their Own!” Dani raises her hands in the air in triumph.
Santana snorts and mutters something within a cough that sounds an awful lot like stereotypical lesbian.
Dani looks over at her, lowering her hands but raising her eyebrows. “What? I like that movie.”
Blaine clears his throat. He points to the leaf. Then he points to the lines behind it.
Sam jumps to his feet. “Serenity!”
Blaine’s shoulders drop in defeat; Kurt almost feels sorry for him. It’s not like the drawing isn’t perfectly clear.
“What are you talking about?” Dani asks.
“You know,” Sam says, “‘I’m a leaf on the wind’.” He makes some sort of hand gesture Kurt can’t follow.
Suddenly filled with energy again, Blaine points at him excitedly. He points at the leaf and crosses it out with his marker. Then he gestures at Sam to keep talking.
“Uh - uh - Oh, god, I hate being under pressure. This is like chem class all over again.” Sam sits down with a thump and pushes his hair back off of his face with both hands.
Blaine gestures at him more animatedly. He points to the wavy lines, then covers the leaf with one hand.
Sam stares at the whiteboard. “No leaf. Something in the fall. Something with no leaves. Uh, that Al Gore movie about global warming? Or Avatar?”
“Time’s up,” Santana says.
“Do you guys know?” Dani asks.
Blaine turns, his eyes on Kurt’s, half daring him and half like he knows Kurt must understand.
“It’s Gone With the Wind,” Kurt says simply, and Blaine’s nod is a mixture of acceptance, appreciation, and sadness at the loss of the point.
Blaine’s shoulders and back are tense as he erases his drawing, and a part of Kurt wants to reach out and touch them, smooth the frustration out of them, soothe his unhappiness. He wants to win, obviously. He wants to prove he threw that game years ago with his brilliant performance tonight. He wants there to be absolutely no question about who is the best and most competitive. He just doesn’t want to make Blaine too unhappy in the process.
Santana lets out a loud, dramatic yawn. “How many points do we have?” she asks. “Should we call it and do our victory dance now?”
“There are a lot of clues left,” Rachel tells her. “I cut out seventy-five. We have at least two hours to go before we’re finished.”
Kurt’s heart stutters and plummets in his chest. Two more hours? It’s not that he isn’t having a good time, but if some of the group is feeling unhappy it’s a lot less fun... or at least it is if they’re feeling unhappy for reasons other than losing to the clearly superior team.
“Oh, god.” Sam rubs his hands over his face and flops back in his chair. “I can’t do this for another two hours. My head’s starting to hurt.”
“Too much thinking for you?” Santana asks archly.
Rachel turns to her in disapproval. “Santana! Be nice.”
“No, she’s right,” Sam says. “It is.”
Blaine stands upright from where he is lining up the pens on the table and says, “Anyone want popcorn?”
“Me!” Dani says. “It’s definitely time for more snacks.”
“Popcorn, yes,” Sam says with feeling. “Maybe with chocolate chips mixed into it. No, M&Ms! Are there M&Ms?”
The corner of Blaine’s mouth lifts in amusement, and the defeated set of his shoulders loosens a little. “I’ll check.”
“Thanks, dude,” Sam tells him as Blaine heads back toward the kitchen.
Kurt watches Blaine go, admiring the cut of his pants and the way his shirt clings to him, showing off the body Kurt loves so much and knows so well. It’s not that he doesn’t see Blaine every day in various appealing outfits and even more appealing states of undress, but he’s not too proud to take advantage of the opportunity to look at him, especially when Santana’s mockery is turned elsewhere for the moment.
“Seriously, we should have bet something on this stupid game,” Santana says, stretching her arms up over her head. “At least then we’d get something out of these endless hours spent looking at bad drawings of movies half of us haven’t even heard of. Laundry service, bathroom cleaning, sexual favors...”
Enough is enough, Kurt thinks. His eyes still lingering on Blaine beyond her, he takes a sip of his drink and says, “You know, Santana, some of us don’t need to win a bet to get sexual favors.”
Dani laughs aloud, and Blaine falters on his toes where he’s reaching up onto a high shelf; he looks over at Kurt like a deer caught in a car’s headlights. He’s still for a moment and then grins and tilts his head in unapologetic acknowledgement.
Santana turns to Kurt, her eyes sharp. “And the claws come out. Remember I’m on your team, Gay Wonder.”
“It’s hardly seems like it the way you’re talking to all of us,” he replies.
“I’m just trying to spice up an otherwise dull night in,” she says. “I feel like I’m living in an endless episode of The Golden Girls with all this game-playing and gossip. All we need is Hummel in a housedress, and it would be perfect.”
Rachel turns on her cushion to face her and folds her hands in her lap. “What is your problem, Santana? You chose to live with us. And we’re having fun. It’s nice being all together.”
“Sometimes I don’t know why I agreed to any of this,” Santana says.
“If you ask me, I think she doesn’t like that she’s having fun,” Dani says, putting her feet up on the coffee table. She raises her eyebrows at Santana, a knowing smile on her face. “Isn’t that right, babe?”
Santana glares at her for a moment, and then her shoulders drop in defeat. “Shut up,” she says without any real heat.
“I knew it,” Rachel squeals, clapping with delight. “Best night ever, right?”
Santana shakes her head, holding out her hands between them. “Stop it right there, Berry. I might love you guys, but that doesn’t you aren’t all big dorks, you know.”
Rachel leans over into Santana’s space and wraps her arms around her, still making high-pitched happy noises. Kurt smiles quietly to himself; it’s no less than Santana deserves.
“What are you doing?” Santana asks, her eyes going wide.
“Hugging you,” Rachel says, squeezing her tighter. “Because you’re a part of the family. You’re one of us.”
“Oh, god,” Santana says in horror.
“It’s true.” Kurt reaches over and pats her shoulder before getting up. “And one of these days you’ll stop fighting it.”
“Besides,” Rachel reminds her. “We won!”
Santana make a thoughtful noise and stops struggling in her grasp as Kurt steps over her legs. “That’s true.”
“Hey, hey, it’s not over yet,” says Dani.
Kurt goes to join Blaine at the kitchen counter where he’s setting up the air popper. “Why does game night always devolve into name calling and borderline hate speech?” he asks, propping his hip against the counter.
“Because we invite Santana?” Blaine replies. He smiles over at him and bends down to pull out the glass jar of popcorn kernels.
“Mmm.” Kurt leans up over him to bring down the big ceramic nesting bowls. He feels Blaine pat his calf before he stands back up, leaving a little thrill of warmth where he touched.
“Still,” Blaine says, a twinkle in his eye. “She’s right. Maybe you should have bet for something. You’re going to win.”
“Not as easily if you and I had been on the same team,” Kurt reminds him. He tips his head up and looks at the plaster ceiling with its cracks in the shape of Denmark. “Although she may have been on the right track. I certainly wouldn’t have minded a month free from dishwashing.”
Blaine laughs and leans in closer, his breath warm against Kurt’s cheek. “Oh, that’s what you would have wanted? The dishwashing?”
“Like I said,” Kurt replies steadily, though he’s sure the color is rising into his face with the way his heart is starting to beat faster, “I get the rest for free.”
Blaine’s smile turns rueful, and he hooks his finger in Kurt’s belt loop for a moment, tugging at him gently. “You certainly do,” he admits.
Kurt tips his head and smiles back at him, feeling warm and settled inside, loose and unguarded. He’s used to it now - again - but sometimes it strikes him that It’s so easy to be loved by Blaine, to be in love with him. It’s as simple as filling his lungs with air, as natural as raising his voice in song. It’s solid ground beneath his feet, extra sunshine on his face through his day.
He drinks in the sweetness in Blaine’s eyes, soaks up the light in his face and the gentle possessiveness of his touch. It’s all so easy.
Smiling a little more, he bites his lip for a moment as contentment rises up through him and then says, “If you wanted to find a way to apologize to me for doubting my game-playing prowess, though, I’m all ears.”
Blaine’s laugh is low and happy. “Well, if you wanted - “ he begins, his voice filled with promise.
“Hey, did you find any M&Ms?” Sam asks as he bounds over. He seems very cheerful for someone who is losing at Pictionary, as far as Kurt is concerned.
“I didn’t look yet,” Blaine says, not stepping away from Kurt but going back to working on making popcorn. “They’d be over on the shelves.”
“Unless Rachel ate them all on her latest late night craving binge,” Kurt says.
“Hey, Rachel?” Sam calls over his shoulder. “Did you eat all the M&Ms?”
“I would never - “ Rachel starts, sounding affronted.
“That’s a yes,” Kurt says with a sigh. “Do you have a second choice of topping? We don’t have any chocolate chips, either.” They really need to find better hiding places. The stress of the Broadway stage is making her even less considerate than usual.
“Butter, I guess,” Sam says with considerably less enthusiasm than he had for the chocolate.
Kurt pushes away from the counter to get a saucepan. “I’ll melt some.”
Sam pats him on the shoulder as he passes. “Thanks, Kurt.”
“Thanks for your help,” Blaine says when Kurt returns with a pan and some butter from the fridge. The air popper is whirring away on the counter like a crackling white noise machine, though it does little to drown out Santana’s loud burst of laughter over by the couch.
Kurt places the pan on a burner and flicks on the heat. “I feel like I should come up with some cutting comment about buttering you up,” he says, gesturing with the dish in his hand, “but since we’re winning I don’t think it would make much sense.”
“You could be soothing the burn of my hurt feelings?” Blaine suggests.
Kurt shrugs, unconvinced. It lacks poetry. Also, who puts butter on burns in the twenty-first century? “That one’s pretty weak, too.” He cuts off a few pieces of butter and drops them into the pan.
Blaine hums his agreement. “Almost as weak as my showing tonight.”
With one eye on the pan he’s slowly swirling over the heat, Kurt turns toward Blaine beside him and says, “It’s not you. Your team could use some work, but that’s not your fault.”
“I guess.” Blaine looks over his shoulder toward the couch and his team. He seems more resigned than defeated, but he definitely seems disappointed. “They’re trying.”
“You can’t help it that they’re not as cutthroat and focused as the rest of us,” Kurt tells him, reaching out to pet Blaine’s shoulder, curling his fingers over the muscle for a moment. It’s only a minor character flaw, after all; Sam and Dani have other strengths, including their infectious smiles.
“Mmm,” Blaine says again and turns back toward him as Kurt’s hand drops away. His own smile blooms across his face, even more infectious than his teammates’, if Kurt is the one judging. “So...” he says slowly.
Kurt raises his eyebrows. “So?”
Blaine glances back at the rest of their friends and then lowers his voice a little. It takes on a hint of that rough, molasses-rich tone that always makes Kurt’s blood heat in his veins. “Even though we didn’t make a formal wager, as the undisputed winner of our Pictionary game you could still ask me for a little something extra special tonight if you wanted.”
His mouth suddenly dry, Kurt moistens his lower lip with the tip of his tongue and says, “Extra special? I don’t think you’ve said no to anything I’ve ever asked.”
“That’s true.” Blaine’s eyes are dark as he turns back to the popcorn maker as the kernels begin to pop and spill out of its chute. “But think about what else you might ask for if you knew I couldn’t say no.”
A dozen pornographic images flash through Kurt’s mind. Positions, toys, costumes, boundaries to push and push and push until they break through to the blissful other side. They aren’t anything that he necessarily wants, because he and Blaine have gotten good at talking with each other over the years and don’t hold back often when there’s something they want to try, but the idea of being able to ask for anything, to do anything with Blaine without having to worry about Blaine being in the mood for something else or thinking it is weird or needing to know more than that Kurt wants it is absolutely thrilling.
He could really, really like that.
His heart pounding, Kurt looks up from the pan to find Blaine watching him. He swallows, knowing wonder-filled desire is written across his face.
“Really?” Blaine says a little breathlessly, watching him closely.
Biting his lip again, Kurt admits, “Maybe.” He doesn’t know what, it doesn’t even have to be something new, but he’s sure he can come up with something he’d like to ask from Blaine.
Blaine’s face lights up in that wonderful way it does when he’s really excited. His eyes are filled with promise and rapt interest and just this tiny hint of a twinkle that makes Kurt’s dreamy train of thought stop in an instant like a bubble being popped.
“Wait a minute,” he says, standing taller. He pulls the butter off of the heat and flips off the burner before he loses track of it. “You’re distracting me! You’re doing that on purpose.”
Blaine blinks at him, all innocence. “But, Kurt...”
Kurt fixes him with a sharp glare. “Don’t you ‘But, Kurt’ me! You’re playing dirty.”
Ducking his head and laughing, Blaine doesn’t disagree. He drops the act - if not all of the interest in his gaze - unplugs the popcorn popper, and says as he shakes out the rest of the popped kernels into the biggest bowl, “Well, you guys haven’t won yet...” He shrugs his shoulder.
“Yet is the operative word. It’s still going to happen,” Kurt tells him. “Even you know it is.”
The grin Blaine shoots him is full of good-natured challenge. “The night is still young, Kurt.”
“I can’t believe I was actually going to feel sorry for you if you lost,” Kurt says, drizzling the melted butter over the popcorn when Blaine holds out the bowl for him. “I can’t believe I forgot for a minute how much you like to win.”
“Just as much as you do,” Blaine agrees easily, without any bite at all. He tosses the popcorn to coat it and then begins to separate it into the smaller bowls.
“I don’t know if I like that better about you when you’re on my team and we win together or when you’re my competition and actually someone worth playing against.”
Blaine smiles at him and says, “I like being on the same team. But you can’t blame me for trying to take whatever advantage I can get tonight.”
Kurt sets the pan in the sink and runs some water into it. “No, but then you can’t blame me for beating you anyway.”
“Oh, you can try,” Blaine laughs.
Kurt walks slowly over to him, sliding his hand down Blaine’s bare arm from elbow to wrist in a deliberate tease. He can feel Blaine’s pulse skitter beneath his fingertips as he leans in to murmur, “I don’t need to try; I already am.”
Blaine shivers through his indrawn breath, his eyes fixed on the popcorn in front of him, but his voice is steady when he replies, “There are a lot of clues left.”
Kurt scoops up a bowl from the counter. “Then let’s get back to the game,” he says. “I wouldn’t want you to be too tired when I cash in on my reward. My request will be very thorough.” He has no idea what it might be, but Blaine doesn’t need to know that. In fact, it’s probably better that he doesn’t have any specifics; it gives Blaine more to wonder about. He squeezes Blaine’s wrist before letting go and turning away with the popcorn in his arms.
Blaine makes a strangled sound as Kurt glides back toward the couch, fully aware of Blaine’s eyes following him.
“Two can play at the game of distraction,” Kurt says proudly to himself.
Not that he needs the help, because his team is superior in all ways to Blaine’s, but it’s still a thrill to tease him.
“Took you long enough,” Santana says, taking her feet off the coffee table to make room for the popcorn. “Did you have to stop and serenade the corn or something?”
Kurt sets down the bowl and looks with satisfaction at the tally of points on the pad sitting there. “I was just preparing Blaine for the agony of defeat. He doesn’t lose well.” He glances over at Blaine, who is finally moving away from where he was frozen by the counter.
“He explained to me that either way tonight I’m going to be a winner,” Blaine says, raising his eyebrows at Kurt in private amusement, and Kurt grins back, because whether or not they’ve actually upped the ante with the bet they didn’t ever really make they’re still having fun.
“That’s the spirit,” Dani says, clapping Blaine on the shoulder.
“Excuse me while I throw up my dinner,” Santana says. She presses a hand to her chest and pretends to heave. “I thought we were finished with the uplifting speeches when we got out of Glee Club.”
“That was hardly a speech,” Rachel says.
“And it was sweet,” Dani says.
“Besides, no matter where we are, we’ll always be the New Directions,” Sam tells Santana, and for a second Kurt looks around at the smiling faces of his friends - Blaine, Rachel, Sam, Santana, his family - and feels the truth in it. It doesn’t matter that the choir room is long behind them; those ties still bind them, filled in with more memories, more connections, more nights just like this one.
His smile softens from a competitive smirk to something more real, and he draws a breath, not to speak but to hold the feeling of home and acceptance in for a moment.
It’s special. It’s worth holding onto.
Then Rachel bounces up from the couch and jiggles the hat box to shuffle the clues. “That’s a long enough break. Who’s ready for round two?”
“Thank you. I have never liked you more than I do right now,” Santana tells her. She sits up and brushes her hair back over her shoulders. “Less talking, more winning.”
The moment of contemplation lost, Kurt releases the air in his lungs and reaches for his soda, his sharp focus returning.
He can be nostalgic after they finish the game.
His friends will still be there after he beats them, after all.
~end~
Reminder: I AM SPOILER-FREE. PLEASE DO NOT SPOIL ME FOR ANYTHING COMING AHEAD.
Endless thanks to Stoney for cheering me on and laughing at my jokes. I owe her tons. The check is in the mail, my dear!
It’s silly Bushwick futurefic fun. Pictionary and smack talk with Kurt, Blaine, Rachel, Santana, Dani, and Sam.
Title: "Bushwick Game Night" [on the AO3]
Author: flaming muse
Fandom: Glee
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine, Santana/Dani
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 8,200
Summary: Pictionary in the Bushwick loft is serious business.
Spoilers: Bushwick futurefic, set sometime in fall 2013, spoilers assumed through but not past 5x07 (“Puppet Master”)
Disclaimers: The characters belong to various corporate Powers That Be. I make absolutely no profit from playing with them.
Distribution: Please ask.
Feedback is lovely!
Kicking off his shoes, Kurt sets his glass of soda down on the coffee table as Blaine walks over from the kitchen toward his usual spot beside him on the couch.
Kurt finds himself smiling a little that even with more of them in the loft they have usual spots for watching TV or hanging out. It’s not that they don’t all move around, but more often than not Blaine gravitates to his side, his warm weight leaning more against him as the evening progresses, relaxed and happy, so simple. It fills something deep inside Kurt, makes him feel settled and content, his breath coming out soft as Blaine shoots him an easy smile before lowering himself down toward the cushion -
“Oh, no,” Santana says, arresting Blaine’s descent with her words from the other end of the couch. “Not going to happen. Take your perky, unnaturally round ass somewhere else.”
“Excuse me?” Kurt asks, his eyebrows lifting in in sharp surprise.
“You’re one to talk about perky and unnaturally round asses, Santana,” Rachel says.
Blaine stands slowly back up and turns toward Santana in confusion; Kurt’s fingers itch to pull him right down where he belongs. He very deliberately does not look at Blaine’s admittedly extremely nice ass.
“If I’m going to be forced to sit through this lame G-rated game night - “ Santana gestures over to where Rachel is carefully cleaning the big whiteboard they’ve pulled out and propped on top of the television. “ - without alcohol or an amazing prize for winning at the end of it, then I’m not playing against Lady Hummel and his little dwarf prince with their mystical gay mind-reading powers. So move along. Shoo. Scram.”
“I love game night,” Dani says from the kitchen where she’s filling a bowl with chips from a bag. “And so do you.”
Santana shoots her what is probably supposed to be a quelling glare, but Dani just smiles at her.
“Did you want to be on our team?” Blaine asks Santana, far too kindly to Kurt’s ears.
Santana crosses her arms over her impressive chest, leans back into the corner of the couch, and says, “No, I want you two to be on separate teams this time. Make it fair for the rest of us for a change.”
“It is nice to mix things up,” Rachel says. She wipes firmly at a little smudge of dried marker at the top left corner of the whiteboard.
Kurt’s eyebrows rise higher as he looks up at Blaine. It’s not that they can’t play against each other on game night; they just usually don’t. More importantly, he doesn’t think Santana should get to choose for them.
“Blaine can play on my team,” Sam says as he flops happily into a chair. “Bro power! Nightbird and the Blond Chameleon together again!”
Blaine shoots him a little grin before turning back to Kurt. He hesitates before asking him carefully, “Are you okay with that?”
The concern for him in Blaine’s question makes Kurt’s eyes narrow. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Blaine tips his head like he’s considering his answer, which makes Kurt’s eyes narrow even more.
“Can you handle it?” Kurt asks him in challenge.
“Are you two really too codependent to go up against each other?” Santana asks them.
“Please, Santana,” Kurt says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I just want to be sure we don’t repeat the all-night Monopoly game of my senior year. It was brutal and bitter. Neither of us wanted to concede defeat. My dad and Carole threw up their hands and went to watch TV at nine, Finn gave up at ten, and Blaine and I played right up to curfew at midnight.” A smile twists painfully out of him at the memory of all of his family together at the dining room table, laughing like they didn’t have a care in the world, no idea that so much would be taken from them the next year. He’s glad for the memory, but he wishes it didn’t have to hurt.
“I won,” Blaine says proudly, rocking forward on his toes.
“I let you win so you could go home without being eaten alive by the tension of our unfinished competition,” Kurt says. The quick, dirty blow job he’d been duty bound to give as the loser hadn’t exactly been a hardship, either, after they’d been flirtily snarking at each other for hours over utility companies, luxury hotels, and dreams of Park Place.
Blaine’s smile turns into a challenging smirk, pretty much the same one Kurt had seen from him that night. There’s something comfortable within it for Kurt, knowing that Blaine loves him but knowing as well that Blaine won’t back down when he thinks he can win a game. They both like to be the best at things, after all. “You keep telling yourself that.”
“I will,” Kurt replies firmly, feeling his blood heat at Blaine’s words, “because it’s true.”
Blaine laughs. “I don’t think so.”
Kurt crosses his arms over his chest. “That’s ridiculous. You really think I would have mortgaged Boardwalk to put a hotel on Marvin Gardens? Boardwalk?”
“I know how you feel about hotels, Kurt,” Blaine says, not losing that smirk at all. He leans in a little, his voice dropping and his eyes smouldering. “You can’t resist them.”
Kurt’s indignation is the perfect antidote to that too-appealing tone of voice and the bit of truth wrapped up in it. He really does like hotels, both in life and in games.
“Wait a minute,” Santana says. “You stayed up all night with no parents around and actually played Monopoly? What the fuck is wrong with you boys? By this point I know for a fact neither of you is actually smooth like a Ken doll down there, as much as I’d like to erase the time I walked in on - ”
“Anyway!” Rachel says briskly, arranging the whiteboard markers neatly on the table and breaking off however Santana was going to finish that sentence. “Let’s pick teams.”
“Let’s,” Kurt bites out, still watching Blaine.
“You. Over there.” Santana points across the room and raises her eyebrows at Blaine.
Blaine looks over at Kurt again, not like he’s asking permission but like he’s gauging his reaction.
“As much as Santana shouldn’t get to decide these things,” Kurt says, “I’m offended enough that you don’t believe that I let you win that I’m going to have to insist that you join Sam over there.” He pastes on a tight, fierce smile. “Try not to be too upset when we crush you.”
“Then I’m on Kurt’s team,” Rachel says, plopping down beside him, and Kurt’s smile turns absolutely smug, because she’s almost as good as Blaine when it comes to being on the same page as him. They understand each other very well.
“Wait a minute,” Santana says in dismay. “That’s not any better. She’s like Blaine Junior.”
“Actually, I prefer to think of Blaine as the male me,” Rachel says. She smooths down her skirt and curls up against Kurt.
She elbows him when Kurt mutters in some horror, “Well, that’s disturbing.” He turns to her, hopefully putting that tender bit of his rib out of her range in the process. “What? It is.”
“Or you just have excellent taste in friends that transcends gender,” she says and slides in closer.
It’s nothing at all like he feels when Blaine’s at his side, but it’s still cozy and familiar to have Rachel beside him, this person he’s held onto for years through tough times and good ones, and he adjusts his arm so she fits there better.
“Still - “ Santana starts.
“You can’t pick all of the teams, Santana.” Dani takes the chair beside Sam and offers him the big bowl in her hand. “That’s not fair.”
“And if you’re splitting up Kurt and Blaine it wouldn’t be fair for you to be on Dani’s team,” Rachel says.
Santana stares at them both, her mouth open, and then says, “Fine, then I’m on Team Hummelberry, because I might as well get to take advantage of your weird gay-to-honorary-gay mind meld.”
“Yay, I’m with Blaine and Sam!” Dani says.
“Dude, this is going to be awesome,” Sam says around a mouthful of chips.
“Okay,” Rachel says, sitting forward as Blaine sits on the floor between Sam and Dani. “I took the liberty of printing out a bunch of classic movie titles so that there’s no way anyone can sneak in porn titles again.”
“Watching you try to you draw ‘Deep Throat’ was hilarious, though,” Santana drawls.
Rachel’s cheeks turn pink, but she soldiers on. “These are all well-known classics that we all should be familiar with, drawn from a range of genres.” She flips open the lid on a hat box Kurt has donated - temporarily - to the game to reveal dozens of neatly folded slips of paper inside.
“But how is that fair if you know all of the answers?” Santana asks.
“I promise I didn’t look at them when I cut them out,” Rachel says primly. “I found a page on Pinterest and printed it out. You really can find everything on there.”
“Besides,” Kurt reminds Santana under his breath, “she’s on our team.” Not that he doesn’t want to win fairly, because he absolutely does want to have full and complete bragging rights without a hint of scandal, but he doesn’t see why she should be complaining about having an advantage.
Sam digs in the front pocket of his jeans. “Flip to see which team goes first?” he asks.
“I still think we should have a sing-off for it,” Rachel says, and Blaine nods along with her. Kurt steadfastly ignores them both and refuses to think of their similarities.
“Call it in the air,” Sam says, brandishing a quarter and flipping it up in front of him.
“Tails!” Dani says.
Rachel pounds her fist against Kurt’s thigh. “I wanted tails,” she hisses under her breath.
“Well, don’t take it out on me,” he says back, rubbing his leg. For someone with such small hands, she can hit quite hard.
Sam catches the coin, smacks it against his arm, and announces, “Heads.”
“Yes!” Rachel crows and jumps to her feet.
Kurt shakes his head in disbelief.
“We’ll go first!” Rachel says. “Who should draw? Should I draw? No, this isn’t charades. Kurt, you should draw. You have an innate talent for the visual arts as well as performance. My gifts are more specialized and focused.”
“Thank you?” As Rachel drops back into her spot on the couch, Kurt stands up beside the board and pulls a slip of paper from the hat box. He knows he’s not allowed to speak, but he can’t help the smug smile that sweeps onto his face. This one will be a snap.
“Ready?” Dani asks.
Kurt nods.
“Aaaand go,” Dani says, flipping the little timer over.
Still smiling to himself, he uncaps the marker and draws an oval topped with a swirling flourish. This is so, so simple. He allows himself a quick glance over at Blaine, who is going to lose.
And as expected, by the time he gets to the fourth little circle under the oval Rachel is crying out, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s!”
Turning on his heel with satisfaction, Kurt hands the paper to Dani for confirmation and happily taps the cap back onto the marker with the flat of his hand.
“Wow, that was what? Ten seconds?” Dani says, her eyebrows raised in amazement.
“How do you get Breakfast at Tiffany’s from a squiggle and a few dots?” Santana squints at the whiteboard.
“Obviously that’s Audrey Hepburn,” Blaine says, and Kurt smiles at him proudly, because yes, obviously it is.
“Excellent start,” Rachel tells Kurt, patting his leg much more gently when he sits back down.
“Thank you,” he murmurs in reply.
“So who wants to draw?” Dani asks Sam and Blaine.
“I will.” Blaine stands up from the floor and goes over to the whiteboard, carefully erasing Kurt’s drawing before pulling a slip of paper from the box. “Ready.”
“Go,” Santana says and tips over the timer.
Blaine reads the paper and nods to himself, then tucks the paper into the front pocket of his distractingly well-fitted jeans and draws a circle.
“Moon,” Sam says. “Circle. Sphere. Rock.”
Blaine points to him excitedly and taps his marker on the circle.
“Rock! Okay!” Dani says.
“School of Rock. Rock of Ages. ‘Rock the Casbah’. ‘Rock Me, Amadeus’,” Sam says, leaning forward in his chair.
Dani reaches out and put her hand on his arm. “Slow down,” she tells him. “Take a breath.”
“And try to remember this is movie titles and not song titles,” Santana mutters; Rachel shushes her.
“Rocky,” Sam suggests.
Blaine shakes his head.
“Rocky Horror Picture Show,” says Dani.
“Rocky II,” Sam says, bouncing a little as he leans excitedly over his legs. Rocky III. Rocky IV. Rocky V!”
Blaine takes a breath that sounds frustrated to Kurt’s ears and draws a slanted line on the board, under the rock.
“Rock slash?” Sam suggests. “Rock line? Rock wall. Rock climbing.”
“Movie titles, Sam,” Blaine reminds him.
Rachel waves at Blaine and says, “No talking! The person drawing can’t talk!”
Blaine takes another breath and points at the circle again with his pen. He draws some wavy lines coming out from behind the rock.
“Rock,” Dani says. “The Rock? Rock ‘n’ Roll High School?”
“You’re running out of time,” Santana says, happily swinging her foot where her leg is crossed over her knee.
“Maybe it’s a stone?” Sam says. “Romancing the Stone. Stoners, uh... Half-Baked. Dude, Where’s My Car? Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke!”
Kurt watches Blaine close his eyes under his furrowed, frustrated brow and then draw what is obviously a fedora next to the line. He draws a spiral next to it.
Kurt smiles to himself and smooths his jeans over his knees. He knows exactly what it is.
Leaning forward to watch the timer, Santana says, “Almost done...”
Blaine tenses his jaw and makes determined lines behind the rock as if showing motion; at least that’s what it looks like to Kurt.
“Lines!” Sam says, sitting forward in his chair. “Wavy lines! Blurred lines! Robin Thicke!”
Santana collapses back against the couch cushions and says, “Movie titles, Sam. And also, you’re out of time.”
“Damn it.” Sam slaps his hands against the arms of his chair. “Was I close? I was close, right? I could feel it.”
“Not really,” Blaine says shortly, very precisely capping the marker. His jaw is clenched, his nostrils flared. Kurt would feel bad for him, except for the fact that it means the point is going to be his team’s instead.
“We get to guess, right? For the point?” Rachel asks.
“Oh, right, I’m supposed to be keeping score.” Dani grabs the little notebook on the coffee table and draws a few lines with the pen.
“I know what it is,” Kurt says, and Blaine looks up from where he’s stewing into the distance to meet his eyes.
Blaine raises his eyebrows in what seems to be a combination of challenge and relief that someone understands him.
“Well, that’s obviously a big rock,” Kurt begins, pointing to it. He’s drawing it out, he knows he is, but he can’t help it. He does have a flair for the theatrical, after all. He’s also feeling at least a little bit smug about it.
“Yeah, we got that part,” Sam says.
Kurt keeps his eyes on Blaine, who watches him steadily, and says, “And that’s a big ramp. The lines denote motion, like the rock is rolling. Add to that the battered fedora and the leather whip...” He hesitates, and Sam covers his face with his hands, groaning. “Indiana Jones. A big rock. Obviously it’s Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
Blaine fishes out the paper from his pocket and hands to Dani, the corner of his mouth twitching in what Kurt thinks must be respect and a little regret that he decided to question Kurt’s game-playing abilities, and goes to sit back down.
“Two points for us!” Rachel says, clapping her hands. “Who’s next?”
“I’ll draw.” Santana unfolds herself from the couch and takes her place by the whiteboard. “And if I haven’t heard of the movie I pick I’m drawing porn. I’m warning you now.”
Sam makes an interested noise, and Dani laughs and smacks him on his arm.
Santana plucks a title from the hat box and unfolds it. “Damn it, I know this one,” she mutters. “Okay.” She looks Kurt and Rachel in the eye. “Ready?”
Rachel nods. “We’re ready, Santana.”
Santana holds eye contact for another long moment. “Do not let me down here. If I have to put up with so much hair product and earnest guessing from you two, you can at least get me some quick points.”
“Just draw the damn picture,” Kurt tells her. He can feel his pulse kicking up as he gets ready to guess; it’s not quite the same level of excitement and determination as he feels before a performance, but it’s close. He still has something to prove.
Santana spins to the board, her hair flaring out behind her, and watches Dani over her shoulder until she flips over the timer. “Here we go,” she says. She starts to draw.
“Umbrella,” Rachel says as it takes shape. “Singin’ in the Rain!”
“Rain Man,” says Kurt.
“Um, what else?” Rachel says. “‘Don’t Rain on my Parade’? Funny Girl?”
Kurt tips his head to the side, his mind spinning. “Umbrella. Umbrella. Has Rihanna been in any movies?”
Santana makes a frustrated noise and scribbles something else beside it.
“A tea cup?” Rachel says.
“Oh! Downton Abbey!” Kurt calls out in excitement.
Not looking away from the board, Rachel flaps a hand at him to quiet him. “Don’t be ridiculous. That’s not a movie.”
“Godfield Park, then,” Kurt says. “Sense and Sensibility. Pride and Prejudice.”
“What do they have to do with an umbrella?” Rachel turns in her seat and asks him.
“It could be a parasol!” Kurt replies, pointing at Santana’s admittedly pretty vague scribble.
“Would you two please focus?” Santana snaps.
“Foul! The person drawing can’t talk!” Sam reminds her.
Santana shoots him a glare that promises dire retribution in the future and puts her marker back on the board. She draws something else, long with a curve on the end.
“What is that?” Rachel says, squinting at it. “A field hockey stick?”
Santana draws a line back and forth from the new picture to the tea cup.
“It’s a spoon!” Kurt realizes.
“Umbrella, spoon, and cup,” Rachel says slowly.
“Almost out of time,” Dani says with a fair amount of glee.
Kurt stares at the pictures, waiting for a pattern to appear. Umbrella, spoon, and cup. Umbrella, spoon and cup...
“Ooh, we’re going to get a chance to steal,” Sam says, patting Blaine’s shoulder in excitement; his eyes fixed on the drawing, Blaine nods back at him.
“Three, two...” Dani counts down.
In an instant of glory, all of the clues click into place in Kurt’s mind. “Mary Poppins!” he cries, almost bouncing out of his seat. “A spoonful of sugar! It’s Mary Poppins.”
Santana turns on her heel to face the other team. “That’s right. Mary motherfucking Poppins.” She drops the marker on the table like a microphone, flops into her seat at the end of the couch, and crosses her legs. Legs shouldn’t look so satisfied, but somehow hers do.
“Wow,” Sam says, blinking at her.
“I’m not sure the movie’s ever been called that before,” Blaine says slowly, his eyes wide.
“Make sure you aren’t so overcome by how good we are that you forget to put our point on there,” Santana tells Dani, gesturing at the notepad with a regal flick of her hand.
Dani leans over and marks the paper as Sam asks Blaine, “Does this kind of feel like Team Gryffindor vs. Team Slytherin to you?”
Blaine glances over at Kurt, who raises his eyebrows in return. Slytherin? Really? Having talents doesn’t make a person evil. “I don’t really think of Kurt being Slytherin,” Blaine says, but he doesn’t sound convinced.
Kurt’s eyes narrow, and he crosses his arms over his chest as Blaine looks away, clearly too uncomfortable to maintain eye contact.
Santana claps her hands together briskly. “Enough chit-chat. Which one of you suckers is drawing next?”
“Santana,” Rachel says a little more gently. “We haven’t won yet. It isn’t nice to gloat.”
“First off, we’re totally going to win,” Santana tells her. “And also game night is all about gloating. Isn’t that the whole point?”
“I thought the point was us all spending time together,” Blaine says. “To have fun.”
“Gloating is fun,” Santana replies.
Dani shakes her head, more fond than frustrated, and gets up from her chair. “I’ll go next.”
The next few rounds go relatively smoothly. Blaine’s team guesses Godfather, The Graduate, and Hair, missing Apocalypse Now, which Kurt’s team can’t figure out, either, from Sam’s messy helicopter with musical notes around it, big explosions that look kind of like volcanos, and a nose over something that it turns out is supposed to be napalm.
Kurt’s team gets Citizen Kane in record time (it doesn’t take him long to draw a sled), as well as Jaws, Duck Soup, and Bride of Frankenstein.
“I still think that looks like Marge Simpson,” Sam says of Rachel’s drawing of Elsa Lanchester with her iconic wig.
“Which is why we’re pulling even further ahead of you,” Santana tells him smugly.
“Oh!” Blaine says up at the whiteboard, his whole face lighting up when he reads the next clue. He bites his lip and doesn’t speak, but he looks like he’s ready to vibrate with excitement; Kurt knows that means it’s because he loves what is written on the paper.
“Ready?” Kurt asks him with his hand on the timer.
Blaine nods quickly and as soon as Kurt’s flipped it over Blaine is making a star with his marker. He stop there and looks at Sam with his eyebrows raised hopefully.
“Star... star... Pretty Woman!” Sam says.
“What?” says Dani.
“What?!” asks Santana, turning to stare at him.
Sam shrugs at them both. “What? Star. Julia Roberts. Pretty Woman. Because she’s a big star. Duh.”
Santana snorts. “Seriously, we should have bet something on this game,” she says to the room at large. “We are so going to win. We could have gotten out of dish duty for a month.”
“Julia Roberts isn’t the first person I think of when I hear the word star,” Rachel muses.
Blaine clears his throat and points at the star again. He raises his eyebrows even higher at Sam.
“Focus, Sam,” Dani tells him, putting her hand on his arm.
Blaine points to the star one more time.
“Oh! Oh! Star Wars!” Sam shouts, and he leaps up to high five Blaine, nearly elbowing Dani in the face in the process.
“Nice!” Blaine meets him halfway and brings him in for a happy, back-clapping hug. “I knew you’d get that one!”
“That was awesome,” Sam agrees, and Kurt narrows his eyes at just how long this very enthusiastic hug seems to be going on. Not that he thinks anything is happening between them, but when was the last time Blaine hugged him for so long and with such excitement?
“I don’t even understand what happened there,” Santana says. “Dork mind meld?”
“You do realize that mind meld is a Star Trek reference, right, honey?” Dani asks. She reaches out and nudges Santana’s leg with her sock-clad toe.
Santana tips her head back against the back of the couch and sighs out heavily. “Fuck. You’re all rubbing off on me. It’s this fucking apartment. Pretty soon I’m going to be singing show tunes while I build a light saber or something. There could be matching costumes involved.”
Dani just laughs at her. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“You don’t know them as well as I do,” Santana replies. “They’re like a cult. A cult of dorkiness and musical theater.”
Kurt rises from the couch; even if there’s fondness in her voice she’s still merciless when she gets on a roll. It’s time to head it off before she gets out of control.
“I’m next,” he says, and he brushes by Blaine, accepting a smile and a lingering touch along his fingers as well as the marker Blaine offers him. “How are you doing with losing?” he asks with mostly feigned concern. “I know it can be hard on you.”
Blaine grins in reply and catches Kurt’s fingertips with his own. “We haven’t lost yet. Would you like anything from the kitchen? I’m getting another drink. I could refill your glass for you.”
Something in Kurt’s heart melts like usual at the caress and the warmth in Blaine’s eyes... until he remembers that for the moment Blaine is the enemy. He can’t afford to be weakened by his too-attractive face.
“No, thank you. I’m too hungry for the win to be thirsty for soda.” Kurt pulls his hand away and turns to dig into the hat box for a new clue. He hears Blaine’s low chuckle and sees him walk away out of the corner of his eye; at least he doesn’t seem to be offended. Kurt may want to beat him roundly, but he doesn’t actually want to do lasting damage to Blaine’s feelings.
He looks over at his team. “Ready?”
Rachel nods, her hands clasped under her chin and her gaze riveted on his face, and Santana rolls her eyes and waves her hand in a yes.
“Go,” Sam says, flipping the timer.
Focusing on the task at hand, Kurt sketches a quick pyramid and then gets to work on a thick, smoky, kohl-rimmed eye with a perfectly arched brow above it. He’s debating whether to see if he can make the right color for the eyes with the markers they have or to start in on the rest of the face with its heavy wig and crown when Rachel squeaks in her seat.
“Cleopatra!” she says. “Oh, Kurt, that’s beautiful.”
“Thank you,” Kurt says, his heart absolutely leaping from how quickly she guessed. He loves how she gets him, especially when they’re working together like this. He hands the paper to Sam and skirts the table back to his seat, hugging Rachel back when she flings her arms around him excitedly.
“We are so good at this!” she tells him, and he nods happily in reply.
“Nice,” Blaine says as he comes back with a fresh glass of water in his hand.
Dani scrunches up her face as she looks at the drawing. “Cleopatra? I thought these were supposed to be classic movies. Wasn’t that the one with the massive budget and all of those problems?”
Rachel snaps around toward her. “Not a classic? Cleopatra won Oscars, Dani!” she tells Dani fervently. “And anything with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton is automatically a classic - “
“Okay, calm down.” Kurt loops his arm around Rachel and anchors his hand at her waist to keep her from vibrating off the couch in indignation. It takes more strength than it feels like it should to keep her there, but then Rachel has always been scrappy for her size.
“Maybe I should do the next clue?” Blaine says, watching them from where he stands by the end of the couch. He carefully sets down his glass on the coffee table, his eyes fixed on Rachel with some alarm.
“Good idea,” Kurt tells him, grateful that Blaine sees just how explosive the situation could become.
Blaine nods at him and quickly makes his way to the board, erasing Kurt’s drawing with quick sweeps of his hand - his short sleeves showing off the flexing muscles of his biceps and forearms, and Kurt stares at them for an appreciative moment before sliding down to Blaine’s trim waist and then away before he gets too distracted - and then plucking another slip of paper from the hat box.
“I can’t believe you’re stopping me from explaining the importance of - “ Rachel begins to Kurt in frustration.
“Shh, it’s their turn,” he tells her, soothing her with a little pat on her hip.
“But she said - “
Kurt bends his head to her ear. “Later,” he murmurs. He can’t feel bad for what Dani will face; it’s her own fault for questioning the epicness of Elizabeth Taylor. The lengthy and detailed diatribe Rachel will surely deliver is no more than Dani deserves.
“Okay,” Blaine says, nodding to himself over the clue. He picks up a marker looks up at his team. “Is everyone ready?”
“Get to it, hobbit,” Santana says and turns over the timer.
“Okay.” Blaine nods to himself again and draws a few swirling but parallel lines.
“Raiders of the Lost Ark again?” Sam asks.
Blaine adds a pretty little spiral and then traces the lines with his marker, like he’s denoting growth or movement.
“Um...” Dani tips her head but seems to have no suggestions.
Blaine’s mouth tightens, and he ducks his chin and draws an oak leaf at one end of the lines, on its side and up a bit like it’s rising up into the air.
“Leaf?” Dani asks.
“Leaf, leaf. I can’t think of any leaf movies,” Sam says, leaning forward in his chair with his elbows on his thighs.
Scrunching her nose, Dani says, “Isn’t there an old movie called A New Leaf?”
Sam taps his fingers together between his knees. “No, uh... what about if it sounds like leaf? Leaf, leaf, leap, league! Justice League. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea!”
“A League of Their Own!” Dani raises her hands in the air in triumph.
Santana snorts and mutters something within a cough that sounds an awful lot like stereotypical lesbian.
Dani looks over at her, lowering her hands but raising her eyebrows. “What? I like that movie.”
Blaine clears his throat. He points to the leaf. Then he points to the lines behind it.
Sam jumps to his feet. “Serenity!”
Blaine’s shoulders drop in defeat; Kurt almost feels sorry for him. It’s not like the drawing isn’t perfectly clear.
“What are you talking about?” Dani asks.
“You know,” Sam says, “‘I’m a leaf on the wind’.” He makes some sort of hand gesture Kurt can’t follow.
Suddenly filled with energy again, Blaine points at him excitedly. He points at the leaf and crosses it out with his marker. Then he gestures at Sam to keep talking.
“Uh - uh - Oh, god, I hate being under pressure. This is like chem class all over again.” Sam sits down with a thump and pushes his hair back off of his face with both hands.
Blaine gestures at him more animatedly. He points to the wavy lines, then covers the leaf with one hand.
Sam stares at the whiteboard. “No leaf. Something in the fall. Something with no leaves. Uh, that Al Gore movie about global warming? Or Avatar?”
“Time’s up,” Santana says.
“Do you guys know?” Dani asks.
Blaine turns, his eyes on Kurt’s, half daring him and half like he knows Kurt must understand.
“It’s Gone With the Wind,” Kurt says simply, and Blaine’s nod is a mixture of acceptance, appreciation, and sadness at the loss of the point.
Blaine’s shoulders and back are tense as he erases his drawing, and a part of Kurt wants to reach out and touch them, smooth the frustration out of them, soothe his unhappiness. He wants to win, obviously. He wants to prove he threw that game years ago with his brilliant performance tonight. He wants there to be absolutely no question about who is the best and most competitive. He just doesn’t want to make Blaine too unhappy in the process.
Santana lets out a loud, dramatic yawn. “How many points do we have?” she asks. “Should we call it and do our victory dance now?”
“There are a lot of clues left,” Rachel tells her. “I cut out seventy-five. We have at least two hours to go before we’re finished.”
Kurt’s heart stutters and plummets in his chest. Two more hours? It’s not that he isn’t having a good time, but if some of the group is feeling unhappy it’s a lot less fun... or at least it is if they’re feeling unhappy for reasons other than losing to the clearly superior team.
“Oh, god.” Sam rubs his hands over his face and flops back in his chair. “I can’t do this for another two hours. My head’s starting to hurt.”
“Too much thinking for you?” Santana asks archly.
Rachel turns to her in disapproval. “Santana! Be nice.”
“No, she’s right,” Sam says. “It is.”
Blaine stands upright from where he is lining up the pens on the table and says, “Anyone want popcorn?”
“Me!” Dani says. “It’s definitely time for more snacks.”
“Popcorn, yes,” Sam says with feeling. “Maybe with chocolate chips mixed into it. No, M&Ms! Are there M&Ms?”
The corner of Blaine’s mouth lifts in amusement, and the defeated set of his shoulders loosens a little. “I’ll check.”
“Thanks, dude,” Sam tells him as Blaine heads back toward the kitchen.
Kurt watches Blaine go, admiring the cut of his pants and the way his shirt clings to him, showing off the body Kurt loves so much and knows so well. It’s not that he doesn’t see Blaine every day in various appealing outfits and even more appealing states of undress, but he’s not too proud to take advantage of the opportunity to look at him, especially when Santana’s mockery is turned elsewhere for the moment.
“Seriously, we should have bet something on this stupid game,” Santana says, stretching her arms up over her head. “At least then we’d get something out of these endless hours spent looking at bad drawings of movies half of us haven’t even heard of. Laundry service, bathroom cleaning, sexual favors...”
Enough is enough, Kurt thinks. His eyes still lingering on Blaine beyond her, he takes a sip of his drink and says, “You know, Santana, some of us don’t need to win a bet to get sexual favors.”
Dani laughs aloud, and Blaine falters on his toes where he’s reaching up onto a high shelf; he looks over at Kurt like a deer caught in a car’s headlights. He’s still for a moment and then grins and tilts his head in unapologetic acknowledgement.
Santana turns to Kurt, her eyes sharp. “And the claws come out. Remember I’m on your team, Gay Wonder.”
“It’s hardly seems like it the way you’re talking to all of us,” he replies.
“I’m just trying to spice up an otherwise dull night in,” she says. “I feel like I’m living in an endless episode of The Golden Girls with all this game-playing and gossip. All we need is Hummel in a housedress, and it would be perfect.”
Rachel turns on her cushion to face her and folds her hands in her lap. “What is your problem, Santana? You chose to live with us. And we’re having fun. It’s nice being all together.”
“Sometimes I don’t know why I agreed to any of this,” Santana says.
“If you ask me, I think she doesn’t like that she’s having fun,” Dani says, putting her feet up on the coffee table. She raises her eyebrows at Santana, a knowing smile on her face. “Isn’t that right, babe?”
Santana glares at her for a moment, and then her shoulders drop in defeat. “Shut up,” she says without any real heat.
“I knew it,” Rachel squeals, clapping with delight. “Best night ever, right?”
Santana shakes her head, holding out her hands between them. “Stop it right there, Berry. I might love you guys, but that doesn’t you aren’t all big dorks, you know.”
Rachel leans over into Santana’s space and wraps her arms around her, still making high-pitched happy noises. Kurt smiles quietly to himself; it’s no less than Santana deserves.
“What are you doing?” Santana asks, her eyes going wide.
“Hugging you,” Rachel says, squeezing her tighter. “Because you’re a part of the family. You’re one of us.”
“Oh, god,” Santana says in horror.
“It’s true.” Kurt reaches over and pats her shoulder before getting up. “And one of these days you’ll stop fighting it.”
“Besides,” Rachel reminds her. “We won!”
Santana make a thoughtful noise and stops struggling in her grasp as Kurt steps over her legs. “That’s true.”
“Hey, hey, it’s not over yet,” says Dani.
Kurt goes to join Blaine at the kitchen counter where he’s setting up the air popper. “Why does game night always devolve into name calling and borderline hate speech?” he asks, propping his hip against the counter.
“Because we invite Santana?” Blaine replies. He smiles over at him and bends down to pull out the glass jar of popcorn kernels.
“Mmm.” Kurt leans up over him to bring down the big ceramic nesting bowls. He feels Blaine pat his calf before he stands back up, leaving a little thrill of warmth where he touched.
“Still,” Blaine says, a twinkle in his eye. “She’s right. Maybe you should have bet for something. You’re going to win.”
“Not as easily if you and I had been on the same team,” Kurt reminds him. He tips his head up and looks at the plaster ceiling with its cracks in the shape of Denmark. “Although she may have been on the right track. I certainly wouldn’t have minded a month free from dishwashing.”
Blaine laughs and leans in closer, his breath warm against Kurt’s cheek. “Oh, that’s what you would have wanted? The dishwashing?”
“Like I said,” Kurt replies steadily, though he’s sure the color is rising into his face with the way his heart is starting to beat faster, “I get the rest for free.”
Blaine’s smile turns rueful, and he hooks his finger in Kurt’s belt loop for a moment, tugging at him gently. “You certainly do,” he admits.
Kurt tips his head and smiles back at him, feeling warm and settled inside, loose and unguarded. He’s used to it now - again - but sometimes it strikes him that It’s so easy to be loved by Blaine, to be in love with him. It’s as simple as filling his lungs with air, as natural as raising his voice in song. It’s solid ground beneath his feet, extra sunshine on his face through his day.
He drinks in the sweetness in Blaine’s eyes, soaks up the light in his face and the gentle possessiveness of his touch. It’s all so easy.
Smiling a little more, he bites his lip for a moment as contentment rises up through him and then says, “If you wanted to find a way to apologize to me for doubting my game-playing prowess, though, I’m all ears.”
Blaine’s laugh is low and happy. “Well, if you wanted - “ he begins, his voice filled with promise.
“Hey, did you find any M&Ms?” Sam asks as he bounds over. He seems very cheerful for someone who is losing at Pictionary, as far as Kurt is concerned.
“I didn’t look yet,” Blaine says, not stepping away from Kurt but going back to working on making popcorn. “They’d be over on the shelves.”
“Unless Rachel ate them all on her latest late night craving binge,” Kurt says.
“Hey, Rachel?” Sam calls over his shoulder. “Did you eat all the M&Ms?”
“I would never - “ Rachel starts, sounding affronted.
“That’s a yes,” Kurt says with a sigh. “Do you have a second choice of topping? We don’t have any chocolate chips, either.” They really need to find better hiding places. The stress of the Broadway stage is making her even less considerate than usual.
“Butter, I guess,” Sam says with considerably less enthusiasm than he had for the chocolate.
Kurt pushes away from the counter to get a saucepan. “I’ll melt some.”
Sam pats him on the shoulder as he passes. “Thanks, Kurt.”
“Thanks for your help,” Blaine says when Kurt returns with a pan and some butter from the fridge. The air popper is whirring away on the counter like a crackling white noise machine, though it does little to drown out Santana’s loud burst of laughter over by the couch.
Kurt places the pan on a burner and flicks on the heat. “I feel like I should come up with some cutting comment about buttering you up,” he says, gesturing with the dish in his hand, “but since we’re winning I don’t think it would make much sense.”
“You could be soothing the burn of my hurt feelings?” Blaine suggests.
Kurt shrugs, unconvinced. It lacks poetry. Also, who puts butter on burns in the twenty-first century? “That one’s pretty weak, too.” He cuts off a few pieces of butter and drops them into the pan.
Blaine hums his agreement. “Almost as weak as my showing tonight.”
With one eye on the pan he’s slowly swirling over the heat, Kurt turns toward Blaine beside him and says, “It’s not you. Your team could use some work, but that’s not your fault.”
“I guess.” Blaine looks over his shoulder toward the couch and his team. He seems more resigned than defeated, but he definitely seems disappointed. “They’re trying.”
“You can’t help it that they’re not as cutthroat and focused as the rest of us,” Kurt tells him, reaching out to pet Blaine’s shoulder, curling his fingers over the muscle for a moment. It’s only a minor character flaw, after all; Sam and Dani have other strengths, including their infectious smiles.
“Mmm,” Blaine says again and turns back toward him as Kurt’s hand drops away. His own smile blooms across his face, even more infectious than his teammates’, if Kurt is the one judging. “So...” he says slowly.
Kurt raises his eyebrows. “So?”
Blaine glances back at the rest of their friends and then lowers his voice a little. It takes on a hint of that rough, molasses-rich tone that always makes Kurt’s blood heat in his veins. “Even though we didn’t make a formal wager, as the undisputed winner of our Pictionary game you could still ask me for a little something extra special tonight if you wanted.”
His mouth suddenly dry, Kurt moistens his lower lip with the tip of his tongue and says, “Extra special? I don’t think you’ve said no to anything I’ve ever asked.”
“That’s true.” Blaine’s eyes are dark as he turns back to the popcorn maker as the kernels begin to pop and spill out of its chute. “But think about what else you might ask for if you knew I couldn’t say no.”
A dozen pornographic images flash through Kurt’s mind. Positions, toys, costumes, boundaries to push and push and push until they break through to the blissful other side. They aren’t anything that he necessarily wants, because he and Blaine have gotten good at talking with each other over the years and don’t hold back often when there’s something they want to try, but the idea of being able to ask for anything, to do anything with Blaine without having to worry about Blaine being in the mood for something else or thinking it is weird or needing to know more than that Kurt wants it is absolutely thrilling.
He could really, really like that.
His heart pounding, Kurt looks up from the pan to find Blaine watching him. He swallows, knowing wonder-filled desire is written across his face.
“Really?” Blaine says a little breathlessly, watching him closely.
Biting his lip again, Kurt admits, “Maybe.” He doesn’t know what, it doesn’t even have to be something new, but he’s sure he can come up with something he’d like to ask from Blaine.
Blaine’s face lights up in that wonderful way it does when he’s really excited. His eyes are filled with promise and rapt interest and just this tiny hint of a twinkle that makes Kurt’s dreamy train of thought stop in an instant like a bubble being popped.
“Wait a minute,” he says, standing taller. He pulls the butter off of the heat and flips off the burner before he loses track of it. “You’re distracting me! You’re doing that on purpose.”
Blaine blinks at him, all innocence. “But, Kurt...”
Kurt fixes him with a sharp glare. “Don’t you ‘But, Kurt’ me! You’re playing dirty.”
Ducking his head and laughing, Blaine doesn’t disagree. He drops the act - if not all of the interest in his gaze - unplugs the popcorn popper, and says as he shakes out the rest of the popped kernels into the biggest bowl, “Well, you guys haven’t won yet...” He shrugs his shoulder.
“Yet is the operative word. It’s still going to happen,” Kurt tells him. “Even you know it is.”
The grin Blaine shoots him is full of good-natured challenge. “The night is still young, Kurt.”
“I can’t believe I was actually going to feel sorry for you if you lost,” Kurt says, drizzling the melted butter over the popcorn when Blaine holds out the bowl for him. “I can’t believe I forgot for a minute how much you like to win.”
“Just as much as you do,” Blaine agrees easily, without any bite at all. He tosses the popcorn to coat it and then begins to separate it into the smaller bowls.
“I don’t know if I like that better about you when you’re on my team and we win together or when you’re my competition and actually someone worth playing against.”
Blaine smiles at him and says, “I like being on the same team. But you can’t blame me for trying to take whatever advantage I can get tonight.”
Kurt sets the pan in the sink and runs some water into it. “No, but then you can’t blame me for beating you anyway.”
“Oh, you can try,” Blaine laughs.
Kurt walks slowly over to him, sliding his hand down Blaine’s bare arm from elbow to wrist in a deliberate tease. He can feel Blaine’s pulse skitter beneath his fingertips as he leans in to murmur, “I don’t need to try; I already am.”
Blaine shivers through his indrawn breath, his eyes fixed on the popcorn in front of him, but his voice is steady when he replies, “There are a lot of clues left.”
Kurt scoops up a bowl from the counter. “Then let’s get back to the game,” he says. “I wouldn’t want you to be too tired when I cash in on my reward. My request will be very thorough.” He has no idea what it might be, but Blaine doesn’t need to know that. In fact, it’s probably better that he doesn’t have any specifics; it gives Blaine more to wonder about. He squeezes Blaine’s wrist before letting go and turning away with the popcorn in his arms.
Blaine makes a strangled sound as Kurt glides back toward the couch, fully aware of Blaine’s eyes following him.
“Two can play at the game of distraction,” Kurt says proudly to himself.
Not that he needs the help, because his team is superior in all ways to Blaine’s, but it’s still a thrill to tease him.
“Took you long enough,” Santana says, taking her feet off the coffee table to make room for the popcorn. “Did you have to stop and serenade the corn or something?”
Kurt sets down the bowl and looks with satisfaction at the tally of points on the pad sitting there. “I was just preparing Blaine for the agony of defeat. He doesn’t lose well.” He glances over at Blaine, who is finally moving away from where he was frozen by the counter.
“He explained to me that either way tonight I’m going to be a winner,” Blaine says, raising his eyebrows at Kurt in private amusement, and Kurt grins back, because whether or not they’ve actually upped the ante with the bet they didn’t ever really make they’re still having fun.
“That’s the spirit,” Dani says, clapping Blaine on the shoulder.
“Excuse me while I throw up my dinner,” Santana says. She presses a hand to her chest and pretends to heave. “I thought we were finished with the uplifting speeches when we got out of Glee Club.”
“That was hardly a speech,” Rachel says.
“And it was sweet,” Dani says.
“Besides, no matter where we are, we’ll always be the New Directions,” Sam tells Santana, and for a second Kurt looks around at the smiling faces of his friends - Blaine, Rachel, Sam, Santana, his family - and feels the truth in it. It doesn’t matter that the choir room is long behind them; those ties still bind them, filled in with more memories, more connections, more nights just like this one.
His smile softens from a competitive smirk to something more real, and he draws a breath, not to speak but to hold the feeling of home and acceptance in for a moment.
It’s special. It’s worth holding onto.
Then Rachel bounces up from the couch and jiggles the hat box to shuffle the clues. “That’s a long enough break. Who’s ready for round two?”
“Thank you. I have never liked you more than I do right now,” Santana tells her. She sits up and brushes her hair back over her shoulders. “Less talking, more winning.”
The moment of contemplation lost, Kurt releases the air in his lungs and reaches for his soda, his sharp focus returning.
He can be nostalgic after they finish the game.
His friends will still be there after he beats them, after all.
~end~
Reminder: I AM SPOILER-FREE. PLEASE DO NOT SPOIL ME FOR ANYTHING COMING AHEAD.