Serendipitous Tendencies: Part 2
Title: Serendipitous Tendencies
Author: Koinaka
Fandoms: Glee, Queer as Folk
Rating: PG 13 for this part. Will eventually be NC-17
Warnings: AU (timeline of Queer as Folk has been shifted ten years, plus there are other changes to the events of the series) For Glee, it takes place after high school, beginning with Kurt's freshman year of college at Carnegie Mellon.
Pairings (if applicable)mentions of pre-Klaine, Klaine, post-Klaine, Justin Taylor/Kurt Hummel.
Character(s) (if applicable) Justin, Kurt, Brian, Emmett, Michael, Ben, Blaine, maybe other Glee folks along the way
Summary: A series of chance meetings changes everything.
Serendipitous Tendencies
By Koinaka
I know I can't take one more step towards you
Cause all that's waiting is regret
And don't you know I'm not your ghost anymore
You lost the love I loved the most
I learned to live half alive
And now you want me one more time
And who do you think you are
Running 'round leaving scars
Collecting your jar of hearts
And tearing love apart
You're gonna catch a cold
From the ice inside your soul
So don't come back for me
Who do you think you are
- Christina Perri Jar of Hearts
Chapter Two
It was the week before Thanksgiving, and Kurt was in desperate need of some relaxation. Between classes, homework, and rehearsals, he was beginning to feel a little stretched thin.
Not to mention the entire situation with Blaine. Ever since the morning where he walked in on Blaine and he of the questionable hair, whose name, Kurt learned, was Sterling, eating breakfast things had been decidedly odd. Over the course of the afternoon he spent with Nathan at the diner working on sketches and mildly - mildly, despite what Nathan may have thought at the time - flirting with Justin, Blaine had sent him half a dozen texts all of which went unanswered and unread.
When he finally did come home, Blaine was waiting for him. Kurt had expected him to make some sort of remark, but he said nothing until Kurt reached the threshold of his room.
"I'm sorry," he blurted out. "I didn't mean - fuck - Kurt, I'm just…" He appeared to be at a loss for words. "I miss you," he finally settled on.
Kurt did not turn around, did not trust himself to turn around. He stood with his back ramrod straight, not moving an inch. "I miss you, too," he said finally before going into his room and shutting the door firmly behind him.
He cried himself to sleep that night, feeling as if there was an ocean separating them instead of only a wall.
A weird sort of cease fire seemed to occur after that night. They had stilted conversations when they passed one another in the apartment, and Blaine never brought anyone home again. They were nowhere near as close as they had been before, but things were better.
Until they weren't.
It happened on Halloween. Nathan and Chris decided to throw a huge Halloween bash for the cast. The theme was Rocky Horror, and despite Kurt's aversion to dressing up as Frank-N-Furter, Nathan had managed to convince him to do so. He was in the bathroom putting the final touches on his makeup before leaving for the party when Blaine walked past the open door.
An inarticulate sound was Kurt's only warning before he was being pulled out of the bathroom and pushed hard against the wall. He doesn't remember who initiated the first kiss or the second. He does remember pushing Blaine away before they were able to completely undress each other and leaving for the party in a state of shock, his lips still red and swollen from their kisses.
He wasn't sure how he expected things to be between them after that, but he hadn't expected Blaine to pretend nothing had happened. It took a week of Blaine avoiding him completely before Kurt finally cornered him in the kitchen. Only he wasn't sure what to say now that he'd finally gotten him cornered. There were a thousand questions flitting through his mind. What he wanted to ask was: Do you still love me?
What he asked was, "Why?"
Blaine was quiet for a long time. "I can't stay away from you. I've tried, God knows I've tried, but I can't - I just can't." The words were right but his tone and tortured expression were all wrong.
They hadn't spoken since.
Kurt knew that Nathan was up to something when he showed up at the apartment with his favorite coffee drink and a determined look on his face. He was proven correct when Nathan barged into the apartment declaring, "I think you need to have some fun tonight. Get dressed - we're going to Babylon."
Kurt had agreed at once because he had been dying to go to the dance club for weeks, but it was always one thing or another that kept him from going namely school work and rehearsals.
Half an hour later, they were pulling shirt after shirt out of Kurt's closet trying to decide which one he should wear. He already had on a pair of black skinny jeans that he'd practically had to pour himself into and his Alexander McQueen boots, but he was at a loss as to what sort of shirt he should wear with it.
"Yes!" squealed Nathan from the depths of Kurt's closet. "I've found it. The perfect shirt."
Only it isn't a shirt in the strictest sense of the word. It was a corset that he had worn the grand total of once back at McKinley - and only then for a period before he was forced to change due to being triple slushied at once.
Nathan shoved the hanger at him when he didn't immediately take it. "Come on. Let's get you into this. You'll be positively indecent. We'll have to beat the men away with a stick."
"You don't think it's too much?" Kurt asked, his head cocked to the side as he stood in front of his full length mirror and held up the corset to his body.
Nathan's grin was wicked. "Oh, it's definitely too much, but that why you have to wear it. You know what would look perfect with this? That black Alexander McQueen trench you have. You know, the one with the gold foil-looking designs?"
Kurt considered it for a minute. He had been looking for an excuse to wear said coat.
He let out a big put upon sigh. "If I must…"
So, that was how he came to be standing in the place where fashion came to die. Every inch of Kurt's designer clad body was cringing as he took in the pulsating lights and gyrating bodies before him. He had always considered himself to be an open minded person - where it really counted, at any rate. However, even he can admit that he is a bit of a snob when it comes to fashion, art, and music. More than a bit, really, if he's being completely honest with himself. It's not that he really considers himself on a higher level than everyone. Everyone in Lima, definitely, but not everyone. It's just a defense mechanism perfected from years of torment.
"It's great, isn't it?" Chris asked.
Kurt surveyed the room with a lifted brow. It was certainly something, but he wasn't sure he would say it was great. Although while he, as a hot-blooded eighteen year old man, could definitely see the appeal in a room full of half-naked men; he couldn't see the appeal in a room full of men wearing such atrocities as spandex, fishnet tops, and all manners of cut-off clothing.
Luckily he was saved from answering by Nathan dragging them both out onto the dance floor. It started off a bit awkward but after a few minutes the three of them established a rhythm that worked for them. Smaller than both Chris and Nathan, although only marginally smaller than Nathan, he ended up dancing between the two. After half an hour or so, with Chris and Nathan fairly winded, they made their way to an empty table.
"I'll go get us some drinks," Chris told them before heading to the bar.
"You hate it here, don't you?" Nathan asked with a pout. "Tell us the truth."
Kurt rolled his eyes at his friend's dramatics. "I don't hate it," he said carefully. "I just don't think it's my scene, that's all."
"Give it an hour, and if you don't like it, we'll take you home. Promise."
Just then, Chris came back with a bottle of water for himself and Kurt and some neon colored drink for Nathan. When they were finished, Nathan led Chris back to the dance floor, but not before warning Kurt to not, under any circumstances, go near the backroom.
"Wait!" Kurt hissed, grabbing Nathan's arm. "What's the backroom?"
The couple exchanged knowing looks. It was Chris that answered. "Trust me, you don't want to know."
He stared at their retreating backs with what he was sure was a vaguely horrified expression on his face.
After a few minutes, he did start to enjoy himself. The music was passable, and it was quite entertaining to watch men make fools of themselves. That is, until they started to hit on him. It might have been funny if it wasn't so very pathetic, really.
He tried to be polite at first, but as the pick-up lines - and really, who still used pick-up lines? - got worse, it became much harder to do. He even burst into fits of giggles after one particularly awful one by a man who must have been in his thirties. The man hadn't been fazed at all by his laughter, but had repeated the line again.
"Do you want to see something swell?" The man asked.
Kurt just stared blankly at him. He thought the man would get the hint, but he didn't.
"Well?" the man asked impatiently.
"Seriously? Seriously? No, no I don't want to see anything of yours."
Kurt spun around to stalk off since obviously the creeper had no intention of leaving, but he didn't get far because he walked straight into someone causing them to spill two neon colored drinks all down the front of his corset.
"Fuck! I'm so sorry!"
Even over the music, Kurt could recognize that voice, not to mention that body. It was Justin. Justin who was currently wearing a very tight white t-shirt that left little to the imagination and faded jeans hung low on his hips. Not exactly Kurt's style, but he definitely pulled that look off spectacularly.
"We've got to stop meeting this way," Kurt deadpanned.
"Oh! Kurt, hey! So sorry about your…" he trailed off as his eyes flitted from Kurt's face to his corset and then to the rest of him. He apologized once more, his eyes lingering on the stretch of skin showing between the corset and his skinny jeans.
Kurt asked him if he knew where the bathroom was only to receive no response.
"Well, do you?" he asked again, a little harsher than he intended but he was beginning to feel slightly sticky.
Justin jerked his head. "What?"
"The bathroom. I've never been here before. Can you show me where the bathroom is?"
"Oh, yeah. Sorry."
He hesitated for a minute, making eye contact with someone on the balcony before leading Kurt towards a small hallway adjacent to the dance floor with his hand on the small of Kurt's back.
The bathroom was fairly crowded, but Kurt managed to squeeze in between two questionably dressed men and wet some napkins in an attempt to wipe up some of the alcohol.
He followed Justin back to the dance floor. "I guess I should go find my friends now," he said.
"No!" Justin exclaimed at once. "I mean, you should come meet me friends. They've been dying to meet you."
Kurt's brow furrowed. "And just how do they know who I am?"
"Michael is Debbie's son, and she just can't stop raving about you. She calls you Doll Face, you know."
Liberty Diner had become Kurt's choice studying place not to mention where he and Nathan ended up at least twice a week. Debbie was a wonderful, if fashionably misguided, woman. Plus, she made a mean mocha - something he could definitely appreciate.
Justin touched his arm briefly, a broad smile on his face. "Come on," he wheedled. "You know you want to."
Kurt sighed. "You had me at Debbie."
Justin chuckled as they walked upstairs. "She calls me Sunshine, you know, so you aren't the only one with a nickname."
"I don't mind. It's better than high school. My cheerleading coach used to call me Porcelain and Ladyface," Kurt shrugged.
"Whoa. A cheerleader? Really?"
"Like I said… I'm a man of many talents."
The first thing Kurt noticed when Justin stopped in front of a group of men was that they were all much older than both of them. The second thing he noticed was that one of them, a very hot brunette, was staring at him with a predatory look on his face.
Justin introduced him to the hot brunette, Brian, a sullen looking brunette, Michael - how he could be Debbie's son, he'd never figure out - and a very professional looking man who looked more like he belonged in a lecture hall than in a dance club, Ben. Ben looked terribly familiar to him, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out where he'd seen him before, and then it dawned on him.
"You're a professor at Carnegie, right? I think I've seen you around."
Ben nodded. "Yes, I teach several classes in the Gay studies department."
"I plan on taking one, if I can ever get the time to do so. I'm in the Acting and Musical Theater program, and it's pretty rigorous. Not a whole lot of time for extra classes."
Ben winced and nodded sympathetically. "That's what I hear."
Michael dragged Ben off to the dance floor leaving Kurt alone with Justin and Brian.
"How's your shirt?" Justin asked when they were gone.
Kurt blinked at the non sequitur. "My shirt? Oh! My shirt. It's fine. Luckily, for you, it didn't stain. If you make a habit of spilling drinks on me, though, I'll have to forward you my dry cleaning bills."
Justin ducked his head, embarrassed, but Kurt could see his smile. "I'll remember that. Can I buy you a drink to make up for it?"
Kurt arched a perfectly groomed eye brow. "Do you think you can manage to not spill it all over me?"
Justin's face lit up with a smile. "I'll try."
Kurt hadn't had more than a sip of champagne on New Year's since April Rhodes had plied him with alcohol in order to keep her position within the New Directions. The closest he had come to drinking again had been at Rachel Berry's failure of a party. Not only did had he been horrifically ill following the April Rhodes ordeal, but he hated the empty calories found within many alcoholic drinks. Justin looked so eager, though, that Kurt hadn't the heart to refuse.
"Well, I suppose that'll do. Sure. I'd love a drink."
Author: Koinaka
Fandoms: Glee, Queer as Folk
Rating: PG 13 for this part. Will eventually be NC-17
Warnings: AU (timeline of Queer as Folk has been shifted ten years, plus there are other changes to the events of the series) For Glee, it takes place after high school, beginning with Kurt's freshman year of college at Carnegie Mellon.
Pairings (if applicable)mentions of pre-Klaine, Klaine, post-Klaine, Justin Taylor/Kurt Hummel.
Character(s) (if applicable) Justin, Kurt, Brian, Emmett, Michael, Ben, Blaine, maybe other Glee folks along the way
Summary: A series of chance meetings changes everything.
Serendipitous Tendencies
By Koinaka
I know I can't take one more step towards you
Cause all that's waiting is regret
And don't you know I'm not your ghost anymore
You lost the love I loved the most
I learned to live half alive
And now you want me one more time
And who do you think you are
Running 'round leaving scars
Collecting your jar of hearts
And tearing love apart
You're gonna catch a cold
From the ice inside your soul
So don't come back for me
Who do you think you are
- Christina Perri Jar of Hearts
Chapter Two
It was the week before Thanksgiving, and Kurt was in desperate need of some relaxation. Between classes, homework, and rehearsals, he was beginning to feel a little stretched thin.
Not to mention the entire situation with Blaine. Ever since the morning where he walked in on Blaine and he of the questionable hair, whose name, Kurt learned, was Sterling, eating breakfast things had been decidedly odd. Over the course of the afternoon he spent with Nathan at the diner working on sketches and mildly - mildly, despite what Nathan may have thought at the time - flirting with Justin, Blaine had sent him half a dozen texts all of which went unanswered and unread.
When he finally did come home, Blaine was waiting for him. Kurt had expected him to make some sort of remark, but he said nothing until Kurt reached the threshold of his room.
"I'm sorry," he blurted out. "I didn't mean - fuck - Kurt, I'm just…" He appeared to be at a loss for words. "I miss you," he finally settled on.
Kurt did not turn around, did not trust himself to turn around. He stood with his back ramrod straight, not moving an inch. "I miss you, too," he said finally before going into his room and shutting the door firmly behind him.
He cried himself to sleep that night, feeling as if there was an ocean separating them instead of only a wall.
A weird sort of cease fire seemed to occur after that night. They had stilted conversations when they passed one another in the apartment, and Blaine never brought anyone home again. They were nowhere near as close as they had been before, but things were better.
Until they weren't.
It happened on Halloween. Nathan and Chris decided to throw a huge Halloween bash for the cast. The theme was Rocky Horror, and despite Kurt's aversion to dressing up as Frank-N-Furter, Nathan had managed to convince him to do so. He was in the bathroom putting the final touches on his makeup before leaving for the party when Blaine walked past the open door.
An inarticulate sound was Kurt's only warning before he was being pulled out of the bathroom and pushed hard against the wall. He doesn't remember who initiated the first kiss or the second. He does remember pushing Blaine away before they were able to completely undress each other and leaving for the party in a state of shock, his lips still red and swollen from their kisses.
He wasn't sure how he expected things to be between them after that, but he hadn't expected Blaine to pretend nothing had happened. It took a week of Blaine avoiding him completely before Kurt finally cornered him in the kitchen. Only he wasn't sure what to say now that he'd finally gotten him cornered. There were a thousand questions flitting through his mind. What he wanted to ask was: Do you still love me?
What he asked was, "Why?"
Blaine was quiet for a long time. "I can't stay away from you. I've tried, God knows I've tried, but I can't - I just can't." The words were right but his tone and tortured expression were all wrong.
They hadn't spoken since.
Kurt knew that Nathan was up to something when he showed up at the apartment with his favorite coffee drink and a determined look on his face. He was proven correct when Nathan barged into the apartment declaring, "I think you need to have some fun tonight. Get dressed - we're going to Babylon."
Kurt had agreed at once because he had been dying to go to the dance club for weeks, but it was always one thing or another that kept him from going namely school work and rehearsals.
Half an hour later, they were pulling shirt after shirt out of Kurt's closet trying to decide which one he should wear. He already had on a pair of black skinny jeans that he'd practically had to pour himself into and his Alexander McQueen boots, but he was at a loss as to what sort of shirt he should wear with it.
"Yes!" squealed Nathan from the depths of Kurt's closet. "I've found it. The perfect shirt."
Only it isn't a shirt in the strictest sense of the word. It was a corset that he had worn the grand total of once back at McKinley - and only then for a period before he was forced to change due to being triple slushied at once.
Nathan shoved the hanger at him when he didn't immediately take it. "Come on. Let's get you into this. You'll be positively indecent. We'll have to beat the men away with a stick."
"You don't think it's too much?" Kurt asked, his head cocked to the side as he stood in front of his full length mirror and held up the corset to his body.
Nathan's grin was wicked. "Oh, it's definitely too much, but that why you have to wear it. You know what would look perfect with this? That black Alexander McQueen trench you have. You know, the one with the gold foil-looking designs?"
Kurt considered it for a minute. He had been looking for an excuse to wear said coat.
He let out a big put upon sigh. "If I must…"
So, that was how he came to be standing in the place where fashion came to die. Every inch of Kurt's designer clad body was cringing as he took in the pulsating lights and gyrating bodies before him. He had always considered himself to be an open minded person - where it really counted, at any rate. However, even he can admit that he is a bit of a snob when it comes to fashion, art, and music. More than a bit, really, if he's being completely honest with himself. It's not that he really considers himself on a higher level than everyone. Everyone in Lima, definitely, but not everyone. It's just a defense mechanism perfected from years of torment.
"It's great, isn't it?" Chris asked.
Kurt surveyed the room with a lifted brow. It was certainly something, but he wasn't sure he would say it was great. Although while he, as a hot-blooded eighteen year old man, could definitely see the appeal in a room full of half-naked men; he couldn't see the appeal in a room full of men wearing such atrocities as spandex, fishnet tops, and all manners of cut-off clothing.
Luckily he was saved from answering by Nathan dragging them both out onto the dance floor. It started off a bit awkward but after a few minutes the three of them established a rhythm that worked for them. Smaller than both Chris and Nathan, although only marginally smaller than Nathan, he ended up dancing between the two. After half an hour or so, with Chris and Nathan fairly winded, they made their way to an empty table.
"I'll go get us some drinks," Chris told them before heading to the bar.
"You hate it here, don't you?" Nathan asked with a pout. "Tell us the truth."
Kurt rolled his eyes at his friend's dramatics. "I don't hate it," he said carefully. "I just don't think it's my scene, that's all."
"Give it an hour, and if you don't like it, we'll take you home. Promise."
Just then, Chris came back with a bottle of water for himself and Kurt and some neon colored drink for Nathan. When they were finished, Nathan led Chris back to the dance floor, but not before warning Kurt to not, under any circumstances, go near the backroom.
"Wait!" Kurt hissed, grabbing Nathan's arm. "What's the backroom?"
The couple exchanged knowing looks. It was Chris that answered. "Trust me, you don't want to know."
He stared at their retreating backs with what he was sure was a vaguely horrified expression on his face.
After a few minutes, he did start to enjoy himself. The music was passable, and it was quite entertaining to watch men make fools of themselves. That is, until they started to hit on him. It might have been funny if it wasn't so very pathetic, really.
He tried to be polite at first, but as the pick-up lines - and really, who still used pick-up lines? - got worse, it became much harder to do. He even burst into fits of giggles after one particularly awful one by a man who must have been in his thirties. The man hadn't been fazed at all by his laughter, but had repeated the line again.
"Do you want to see something swell?" The man asked.
Kurt just stared blankly at him. He thought the man would get the hint, but he didn't.
"Well?" the man asked impatiently.
"Seriously? Seriously? No, no I don't want to see anything of yours."
Kurt spun around to stalk off since obviously the creeper had no intention of leaving, but he didn't get far because he walked straight into someone causing them to spill two neon colored drinks all down the front of his corset.
"Fuck! I'm so sorry!"
Even over the music, Kurt could recognize that voice, not to mention that body. It was Justin. Justin who was currently wearing a very tight white t-shirt that left little to the imagination and faded jeans hung low on his hips. Not exactly Kurt's style, but he definitely pulled that look off spectacularly.
"We've got to stop meeting this way," Kurt deadpanned.
"Oh! Kurt, hey! So sorry about your…" he trailed off as his eyes flitted from Kurt's face to his corset and then to the rest of him. He apologized once more, his eyes lingering on the stretch of skin showing between the corset and his skinny jeans.
Kurt asked him if he knew where the bathroom was only to receive no response.
"Well, do you?" he asked again, a little harsher than he intended but he was beginning to feel slightly sticky.
Justin jerked his head. "What?"
"The bathroom. I've never been here before. Can you show me where the bathroom is?"
"Oh, yeah. Sorry."
He hesitated for a minute, making eye contact with someone on the balcony before leading Kurt towards a small hallway adjacent to the dance floor with his hand on the small of Kurt's back.
The bathroom was fairly crowded, but Kurt managed to squeeze in between two questionably dressed men and wet some napkins in an attempt to wipe up some of the alcohol.
He followed Justin back to the dance floor. "I guess I should go find my friends now," he said.
"No!" Justin exclaimed at once. "I mean, you should come meet me friends. They've been dying to meet you."
Kurt's brow furrowed. "And just how do they know who I am?"
"Michael is Debbie's son, and she just can't stop raving about you. She calls you Doll Face, you know."
Liberty Diner had become Kurt's choice studying place not to mention where he and Nathan ended up at least twice a week. Debbie was a wonderful, if fashionably misguided, woman. Plus, she made a mean mocha - something he could definitely appreciate.
Justin touched his arm briefly, a broad smile on his face. "Come on," he wheedled. "You know you want to."
Kurt sighed. "You had me at Debbie."
Justin chuckled as they walked upstairs. "She calls me Sunshine, you know, so you aren't the only one with a nickname."
"I don't mind. It's better than high school. My cheerleading coach used to call me Porcelain and Ladyface," Kurt shrugged.
"Whoa. A cheerleader? Really?"
"Like I said… I'm a man of many talents."
The first thing Kurt noticed when Justin stopped in front of a group of men was that they were all much older than both of them. The second thing he noticed was that one of them, a very hot brunette, was staring at him with a predatory look on his face.
Justin introduced him to the hot brunette, Brian, a sullen looking brunette, Michael - how he could be Debbie's son, he'd never figure out - and a very professional looking man who looked more like he belonged in a lecture hall than in a dance club, Ben. Ben looked terribly familiar to him, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out where he'd seen him before, and then it dawned on him.
"You're a professor at Carnegie, right? I think I've seen you around."
Ben nodded. "Yes, I teach several classes in the Gay studies department."
"I plan on taking one, if I can ever get the time to do so. I'm in the Acting and Musical Theater program, and it's pretty rigorous. Not a whole lot of time for extra classes."
Ben winced and nodded sympathetically. "That's what I hear."
Michael dragged Ben off to the dance floor leaving Kurt alone with Justin and Brian.
"How's your shirt?" Justin asked when they were gone.
Kurt blinked at the non sequitur. "My shirt? Oh! My shirt. It's fine. Luckily, for you, it didn't stain. If you make a habit of spilling drinks on me, though, I'll have to forward you my dry cleaning bills."
Justin ducked his head, embarrassed, but Kurt could see his smile. "I'll remember that. Can I buy you a drink to make up for it?"
Kurt arched a perfectly groomed eye brow. "Do you think you can manage to not spill it all over me?"
Justin's face lit up with a smile. "I'll try."
Kurt hadn't had more than a sip of champagne on New Year's since April Rhodes had plied him with alcohol in order to keep her position within the New Directions. The closest he had come to drinking again had been at Rachel Berry's failure of a party. Not only did had he been horrifically ill following the April Rhodes ordeal, but he hated the empty calories found within many alcoholic drinks. Justin looked so eager, though, that Kurt hadn't the heart to refuse.
"Well, I suppose that'll do. Sure. I'd love a drink."