FIC: The Orchid and the Weed, 1/13
Title: The Orchid and The Weed; or Been Black and Blue Before 1/13
Warnings: Homophobia, violence, sexual harassment
Includes: angst
Rating: NC-17 overall
Word Count: ~102k
Summary: Due to family monetary struggles, Kurt is forced to go back to McKinley... not that he wants anyone to know the reason. For Kurt and Blaine, though, the biggest hardship is separation. Worried about how his boyfriend is coping, Blaine convinces his mother to let him transfer.
Notes:
For aelora for help_japan. The prompt is a spoiler (except to her, I guess). Suffer in your wondering! (Aside from the warnings.)
AU Post “Original Song.” Ultimately, I decided to stick with my original plans rather than picking up bits from canon, since certain specific developments are not useful for what I’m doing here.
There are thirteen completed parts that I will post over the next three weeks. I don't know what the schedule will be, as I'm preparing for RL stuff.
Part One
A pair of rosy, full lips kissed over the back of a pale neck. Hands moved over thin but firm shoulders, massaging gently and moving downward over the prone body that lay over dark cream carpet. A soft sigh. Sniffing along the neck and taking in a sweet, musky scent.
”Y-you’re going to hate me.”
Fear sparked in his chest when he didn’t even look him in the eye.
Kurt flinched.
Blaine’s hands stilled over Kurt’s now tense back.
As much as the Warblers teased Blaine, all in good fun of course, about his virginal boyfriend flashing Blaine a bit of ankle to get him hot, Kurt was no shrinking violet. He had some issues, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to be close to Blaine. Quite the opposite. Kurt was rather sweetly affectionate and very demonstrative of his interest, when he was feeling good. There were days when they couldn’t keep their hands off of each other, and then there were times when they needed to stop and cool down. Blaine wouldn’t have made Kurt uncomfortable for the world.
So seeing him flinch like that caused worry to quickly swell up in Blaine’s chest. “I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”
”I have to be okay. I’ll be okay because I have to be okay.
“It’s fine. I’m fine.” Kurt rose onto his knees and turned to face Blaine, closing the textbook he had been reading and staring at the floor.
“Just tell me what I did. I promise I won’t be mad. And I won’t do it again,” Blaine promised. Tentatively, he reached forward to touch Kurt’s hand.
“Stop. It isn’t you.”
“So...” Blaine inched forward. Kurt didn’t move away, so Blaine joined his side. “So it’s you? What can I do?”
Blaine didn’t know where else to take him to make him feel safe. Kurt’s bedroom floor seemed pretty innocuous. Oddly enough, he considered taking Kurt into the closet. Small, protected space?
“You don’t have to do anything. I’m fine.” Kurt reached over and touched Blaine’s chin with two fingers. “It’s all right. Please stop worrying about me.”
Not reassured, Blaine put his arm around Kurt’s shoulders and kissed his cheek. Something was wrong, and it killed him that he might not be able to help. He sighed heavily and gave Kurt a squeeze.
He flinched.
Shit.
“Wait... What was that? Are you hurt?” Blaine’s voice shot up and he touched Kurt’s arms as carefully as he could. “Did they hurt you?”
Kurt gave him a faltering little smile and sang, “Been black and blue before, no need to explain-”
“Oh my God, Kurt!”
“It’s not that bad.” Kurt took Blaine’s hands. “It’s just tender.”
Blaine grabbed Kurt’s wrist and tugged. Kurt rose with him and followed as Blaine took them down the hallway.
”We have to find another way. You have to be safe. Does money really matter?”
“I have to be okay. I just have to live through it, that’s all. My parents just don’t have the money, Blaine, and I can’t ask them to sacrifice anything else.”
“Like you?”
“This is promising,” Kurt joked as they entered the bathroom together and Blaine shut the door.
“I wanna see how ‘not that bad’ this is.”
Blaine crossed his arms and raised a brow. Anxiety was buzzing through him and he couldn’t stand still. Kurt frowned, but then unbuttoned his shirt and turned around as he let the soft fabric slip down.
An ugly streak of purple and red shot straight down the creamy pale flesh of Kurt’s back. Blaine’s heart felt like it might escape his chest.
“Not that bad?!”
“It’s just a brui-”
Blaine took Kurt’s shoulders and spun him around so his back faced the mirror. The pain inside his stomach grew, as though he had taken a hit alongside Kurt. “Yeah, that’s a bruise. That’s a hell of a bruise, Kurt.”
Kurt whistled as he looked over his shoulder in the mirror. The attempts at humor had dropped, and he took in the damage solemnly. “Sorry.”
You were supposed to be safe, Blaine thought, fixated on the reflection of Kurt’s abused back.
“You don’t need to apologize to me,” he managed. “Does your dad know?”
“Of course not.”
Blaine stood there ineffectually, staring at Kurt’s naked torso, which would normally be a welcome sight, under better circumstances. His eyes drifted to the the long-healed scar just under Kurt’s ribs, then over the sleek muscles of his abdomen.
Kurt just scrunched his nose up unhappily. “Please don’t say anything.”
“I won’t. It’s just... It’s not okay for you to get hurt like this. I hope you know that.” The wind had left Blaine’s lungs, and he sounded as though he’d been running.
Kurt initiated their embrace, wrapping his arms around Blaine’s shoulders and pressing his cheek against Blaine’s hair. It was odd, how Kurt was comforting him when he was the one... Yes, black and blue. And they’d both done this before. The bruises, hiding them, trying to be braver and stronger than they were. Gingerly, Blaine put his arms around Kurt’s waist.
“Where was Finn when this happened?”
“Probably getting out of Spanish class. He can’t watch me all the time.” Kurt paused. “Anyway, this was my fault.”
“Don’t say things like that!”
“Well, it was. Karofsky was threatening Santana... so I shoved him away before he could get at her.”
Blaine pulled back a little. Kurt’s tongue peeked out over his lower lip, then he sucked the lip in and watched Blaine with big eyes.
“You started it?”
“He started it with her. I owed her one. She kept me from walking right into a Slushy Gauntlet my first week back... I think it was intentional. Her motivations have always been a mystery for the ages.” Kurt’s shoulders slumped over, and he sat against the sink. “When he shoved me back I hit the side of the lockers. The edge of them. That’s why it bruised so badly.”
Blaine shook his head. Burt had gone to talk with Karofsky’s father personally before even proposing the transfer to Kurt, and apparently the two men had come to some understanding. There had been conditions to Kurt’s transfer, but Blaine had never been insensible to how impossible they were to actually enact. Kurt never had been either, but he’d pretended, for his family’s sake.
High school isn’t forever.
“That school is like a war zone.” He took Kurt’s hand and swung it from side to side. “You’re so brave.”
“I’m braver when it’s someone else being pushed around.” Kurt forced a little laugh that only underscored how deeply unfunny this situation was.
Maybe he was joking, but it was true. Blaine wondered, if they gave him someone to protect, would Kurt take these assholes out? But Karofsky wasn’t supposed to be touching Kurt, period.
Blaine pushed his lower lip out. “Santana can take care of herself.”
“Karofsky is three times her size!”
“And ours.” Blaine squeezed Kurt’s hand, feeling as though he needed to scold, or cuddle, or... Well, one or the other. Scolding while cuddling might send mixed signals. “So what happens when your dad gives you a manly slap on the back?”
“Ohhh... That’s not going to be good.” Kurt shook his head and looked up at the ceiling. “I’ll have to suck it up, I guess.”
“You shouldn’t have to. You should tell him.”
“And what, give him more stress? Which he can’t do anything about? The transfer is done, now. Where am I going to go?”
“I seem to remember you not wanting to stress him out before. I seem to remember you tried to take all this on your own shoulders before, too.”
“It’s different now-”
The sound of the front door slamming shut interrupted the natural turn in this argument they kept having. They looked at one another, and Blaine grabbed the shirt and held it out for Kurt to slip back into.
“Yo, Kurt!” Burt called up the stairs. “You home?”
Kurt didn’t answer for a moment as he frantically tried to button up. Blaine covered his mouth and attempted not to laugh. If only they were covering up what Mr. Hummel would think the were covering up.
“We’re in here, Mr. Hummel!” Blaine called back.
Kurt shot him a questioning look. A moment later, the door swung open, and Burt appeared in the doorway.
“What’re you guys doin’?”
“Practicing stage expressions,” Blaine answered with a smidge too much enthusiasm. He turned to the mirror and beamed madly.
Kurt laughed and tented his fingers over his mouth.
Burt raised a brow. “Maybe you should keep workin’ on that.”
“Always!” Blaine said.
“Yeah.” Burt looked over them both then gestured to Kurt with one finger. “You missed a couple of buttons there.”
“Oh.” Kurt looked down and started to fix his shirt.
“Anyone wanna tell me what you were really doin’ up here?”
“Well. We weren’t camping,” Kurt replied dryly.
Blaine blinked as Burt laughed and scratched the side of his head.
“Good. Blaine staying for dinner?”
“I have to get back before curfew,” Blaine explained. “Or they won’t let me out again for a week.”
Burt nodded and gave them a wave as he headed back down the hallway. Kurt led the way back to his bedroom, but now they had to keep the door open.
When Kurt had still been at Dalton, Blaine had to worry about getting Kurt back for curfew. He was the upperclassman, and that had given him the privilege of staying out a bit later than Kurt as well as signing underclassmen out, if he liked. When Kurt had still been at Dalton, they could stay in each other’s rooms and each other’s arms until lights out, if they wanted, meet up between classes, hold hands, kiss in the hallways (sometimes to a merry chorus of Warblers walking by).
When Kurt had been at Dalton, he didn’t come home battered and holding his chin high.
“The tuition here... is kinda steep.”
“Oh no...” Blaine found himself without words. There was nothing to say. The new quarter started Monday. There was only one conclusion to draw from what Kurt had just said, and it wasn’t one Blaine wanted to think about, even though it was an issue that had been on his mind since his first year, when his dad kept grumbling about the tuition and talking about moving again.
Kurt’s hand cupped Blaine’s cheek, and their foreheads met as they leaned on one another.
“We don’t have any other options right now.” Kurt swallowed. “Maybe we can work something out later...”
“I could... I could drain my college fund-”
“You are not doing that.” A faint, loving scold.
Not that Blaine could actually do it without his parents’ approval and involvement, but he wasn’t allowed to think about gutting his future for Kurt, either. His family was secure, yes, but not like the other boys at this school, who could probably fritter away a couple grand to help a friend without much consequence.
Blaine wrapped his arms around Kurt and held him stubbornly. “How could I hate you? I can’t believe your father is letting this happen.”
“He and Carole really did try to come up with the money this time, but the collections agency that the hospital turned us over to put their backs against the wall. That’s why I hadn’t heard about it until now. They’re in a bind. I can’t go here. I can’t not go to school. So Finn and I convinced them I’d be okay. He’ll look out for me. All my friends will.”
“Like they did last time?”
“Can we talk about this?” Blaine sat on the edge of the bed with Kurt.
“There’s nothing more to talk about. I just got a little bruised. It’s fine. I’ve had worse.”
Blaine petted his hands over Kurt’s shoulders with care, then turned him a little and kissed lightly down his back. “I want to come to McKinley.”
“No.”
“Kurt.”
“No, Blaine. Look, your father doesn’t hate me because he’s threatened by my fashion sense. People don’t honk at us on the street because you’re so dashingly dapper.” Kurt’s long, slender fingers petted over Blaine’s chest. “I set off the fire alarms the second I walked into William McKinley High for the first time, and I wasn’t even out then. If you go there attached to me, you’re just going to be one big-”
His finger circled around Blaine’s face and then booped his nose. “-target.”
Blaine knew his lips were dangerously closer to a pout pouting, but he couldn’t hide his hurt. “You don’t think I can take care of you.”
“I would love to get to see you every day at school. I would love to have the feeling of you being there with me. I would love to perform with you again. But I don’t think you transferring to McKinley will solve anything.” Kurt took Blaine’s hand in his own. “What if something happened?”
“You’re not the only one who’s been black and blue before. I’m not afraid.”
“I wouldn’t think less of you either way, you know.” He stared at Blaine’s hand as he rubbed over it with his thumb, then he covered it with his other hand. “I place no judgment on sane responses to insane circumstances.”
They spoke no more of it that night, but instead shared a few hungry kisses before Blaine had to leave to make curfew. They needed to stock up on touches before they parted again.
***
As an added benefit, less homework means more time to focus on my creative aspirations. I’ve been meaning to write a musical about the royal family...
Well, at least I’ll have a great grade point average.
I can spend more time with my family. I do miss them. They’re doing all their Hudmel-family bonding without me!
They have more sports than Dalton. I could join... Cheerios again in the fall.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?
I need to learn to handle myself.
I’m different now. I’m better now.
You said yourself that you regretted running away. Shouldn’t I try to be brave?
Blaine sat down at the dinner table. It had been two days since finding that bruise on Kurt’s back, and Kurt’s too cheerful, nearly incessant excuses for why it was a good thing that he had to change schools again came back to haunt his ears. There was a difference between a stiff upper lip and outright bullshitting, and even though Kurt already had some fine acting abilities, Blaine didn’t buy it. He knew his boyfriend was trying to make the best of a bad situation.
He knew it because Kurt had tried to do the same damn thing when he’d first come to Dalton. A tiny, traumatized thing that jumped at loud noises or whenever anyone but Blaine touched him, and couldn’t believe that the other guys really did like him and weren’t prepped to start making fun of him when he turned his back.
Blaine had been worried at first that he’d been crowding Kurt and keeping him too separated from the other boys, but it had worked itself out. Kurt had used the time to heal, and soon enough had made friends with the other Warblers (almost impossible not to do, actually), adjusted to his classes, and started giving them real smiles.
Now he had to make the transition back to his new old school. Where he had been ignored, taunted, and threatened. So he (as Blaine had at one time, honestly) put on a happy face and spun up excuses as though they would cover him like armor.
Still, the cheerful bullshit excuses were better than the realistic one. The one that Kurt might actually believe, deep down. The one that had made Blaine feel uneasy twinges deep inside himself when Kurt had said it.
Look, Blaine, people are never going to stop bullying me. Not in high school, not in college, not ever. It’s better that I’m used to it. Dalton gets inside you. It gives you hope for something that isn’t there, and sometimes I wonder if it doesn’t make you a little more optimistic than is healthy. My dad is always telling me to be realistic, and try to dress so that people will leave me alone. When you feel safe, you take risks that you otherwise wouldn’t. It’s not good for me to have this fantasy world where no one can hurt me. It makes me forget how many people would kill me just for daring to be less than invisible.
Honestly, how could you go on day-to-day and believe that the world wasn’t in constant molt? Constantly improving itself, and moreover, that people were essentially good? How did you even pick yourself up out of bed?
He knew he didn’t get picked on as often as Kurt, or in quite the same way, and that was... It was just the way it was. It was just people assuming straight until proven guilty. Kurt’s voice, his mannerisms, his intellect, Blaine thought nothing of them, other than that they were part of Kurt and therefore adorable and wonderful. They were part of all the things in him that made them work so well together, and even as a cultural thing, Blaine sort of thought binary gender was dumb and so outdated anyway and his boyfriend was perfect. But everyone else, or most people here in the middle of Ohio, looked at those things and saw something strange, uncanny. Something that shouldn’t be and should be set right as soon as possible.
Blaine understood that. So he sort of got how Kurt could be down on people sometimes. Blaine had been harassed, too, though. He’d been shoved into lockers, pushed down stairs, had books and personal items wrested out of his hands, papers scattered, clothing torn. He’d had guys on the football team in eighth grade (who had once been his friends) refuse to let him into the showers, or deliberately tackle him with all they had on the field. He’d gotten a collarbone broken, once.
The closet had been pretty safe and cozy for Blaine, but at thirteen, when he’d decided to come out, he had some friends in the drama club who were really supportive, and he thought (still did, actually) that there was nothing to be ashamed of. There were gay people all over the world. They were just everywhere when he’d gone to visit his aunt in the Phillipines. Many of them very openly so! He’d decided he would rather be open about who he was than silent and miserable. He could come out, and he could take whatever they threw at him.
But these kids just didn’t stop, and it made Blaine sad that Kurt had never really had that opportunity to stay snug in the closet until he was ready to make that leap of faith. To decide, “Today, I will be brave. I will come out, and it will be okay.” Instead, everyone else had seemed to decide it was okay just to label him and treat him accordingly.
Blaine disliked that kind of behavior. It was important to be able to put aside everyone else’s noise and just hear your own truth long enough to get the courage to come out.
Their situations were also different on other accounts. If people hassled Blaine less about his gender expression, they made up for it in spades with the way they continually failed about race around him, and that had always been a part of his life. People assumed he was a Mexican sometimes, and made weird racial comments about that. (And what the hell difference did it make if he was Mexican??) They tried to guess where he was “really from,” commented on his English proficiency, or asked him questions about other Asians, as though he had a chip in his neck to identify people’s genealogical history. (Doot doot doot... Filipino! Doot doot doot... South Korean!) Some of the boys at the church he’d gone to as a child called him white boy, and that really pissed him off. He was proud of his heritage, and it hurt to have it erased like that, no matter who it was coming from. In seventh grade, he’d gotten into a fistfight with a friend (now former friend) when he’d implied one of their classmates would grow up to be a hooker because she was Asian.
He hadn’t considered how coming out would play into that mess that was already there. But sweet Jeebus, for some people it was a really big deal, he had learned. People were so conveniently traditional sometimes... and so conveniently religious others. There was a joke in there somewhere, if Blaine ever went looking for it.
So in short, Blaine sat down to the dinner table with a head full of understanding that some people were quite mean, and quite stupid, and quite bad, but he did believe that underneath it all, when you got people away from bad social conditioning, they were good, and good things could happen, and did. He believed that people could be taught, educated, and that he could do that with most people, if he could find ways to make them listen.
Kurt did some educating... but usually only with people he thought were worth his time. Blaine understood this, too, because when you found yourself surrounded with ignorance all the freakin’ time, there was a risk of burning yourself out in trying to educate someone who was just suckling on your energy. That was why Kurt needed someone by his side to cover him.
He did have his friends and his brother. He didn’t really need a little bodyguard following him around the hallways, so much as he needed a shield to make him feel secure. Blaine loved him, and missed him, and he didn’t want Kurt shutting himself off again. He didn’t want to see him broken down and exhausted by the evils of the world. This separation was killing Blaine because, though he knew Kurt cared about him deeply, and while they still spent time together, he was missing things. He was missing what was happening to his boyfriend, and he wanted to help him stay open and smiling instead of closing himself off again.
He took a breath as his mother sat down to the table. “Mama? Can I talk to you about something?”
Lea Anderson looked over him, with narrow, tired eyes as she arched a brow and pursed her lips. Her temper had been shorter these days. It was getting harder on the family the longer Blaine’s father was gone. He hadn’t seen his father that much since they’d transferred him to Dalton, but he’d disappeared on some ‘business trip’ and that had been two weeks ago.
“I’m sorry, baby.” She put her forehead to her hand and sighed deeply. “I just got off the phone with your sister, and she’s in trouble at school.”
“She’s not coming home this weekend?” Blaine rubbed his fingers over his lips and gauged his mother’s mood. This was frustration. And maybe a little bit of feeling overwhelmed, and a lot of feeling cut off from her babies.
Okay, this just became about more than his boyfriend.
“No, she got caught with a ‘prohibited substance’ behind the art building. I suspect cigarettes, even though they are acting like it was LSD.”
His mother’s dry humor didn’t exactly land. Blaine rose and walked around their long family dinner table to sit by his mother and hold her. She wasn’t crying, just staring at the tablecloth.
“I can talk to her. Do you want me to go up to see her?”
“She’s your older sister. You shouldn’t have to be the one taking care of her.”
“But I want to.”
And right now he sort of wanted to just tell his older sister how much she was putting on their mom. Tianna wasn’t a bad girl. Not really. She just didn’t think about things before she did them. And even though their parents didn’t know this, her last boyfriend, this truly awful college guy Jason who was too old for Ti, had broken her to little pieces a few months ago and left her with a pregnancy to deal with by herself. He had even refused to pony up the cash or even a ride to help her, and Blaine had ended up driving her to the clinic when she was able to get away from school.
Blaine sort of thought the prohibited substance might be alcohol. They didn’t know that Ti drank sometimes, either. Jason had bought her alcohol, among other things. Things like cigarettes. Thongs. A weird little vibrating thing that looked like a tentacle.
“What do you think of this house, Blaine?” Lea gazed at him with red-lined eyes. Okay, someone had been smoking, and just covered it up with Chanel No. 5.
Blaine shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s... It’s home.”
“I’m thinking of getting an apartment. This house just seems so big with the rooms for you and your sister and your father’s office. I don’t know why I’m keeping it up when your father is away on business so much and you and your sister are hardly ever home.”
“I’ll talk to Ti. I can get her to come home more often,” Blaine said, hearing the slight bend of strain in his voice.
Lea didn’t seem to notice. “I’ve talked with the school. They’re willing to keep her, as long as she doesn’t leave campus for the rest of the semester.”
Blaine looked down at his thighs. He felt sick at the thought of not seeing his sister for the next two and a half months.
His mama hadn’t been like this. She hadn’t been like this since she and his dad had that fight just after Valentine’s Day, and Blaine had made an ass out of himself drinking too much of that stuff from Rachel’s dads’ liquor cabinet that tasted like pink. Kurt had crashed the party with him as a distraction, and boy howdy, had it ever distracted.
“I’m sorry, baby. What did you want to talk about?”
Their food had cooled by now, but Blaine was no longer hungry.
“It’s nothing, Mama.”
“No. You wanted something. I interrupted you. That was rude of me. I just needed to tell you what was happening with Ti, bless her stupid heart.”
The sharp turn of his mother’s words was jarring. Blaine licked his lips. “It’s not important. Let’s just have dinner.”
“You’re my good boy. What do you need? Anything, baby.” She hugged him around his shoulders and kissed his cheek.
“I was going to ask to transfer to another school. Um. McKinley. It’s not that far from here.”
His mother at him with a little frown. “Isn’t that a public school? Baby... You know what happened last time.”
“I do, but... This is a different school. No one knows me there. Less homework will mean I can keep my GPA up and have more time for the extra curriculars that colleges want. I’ll be able to spend more time with the family, too. Oh, and they have sports. I could play football again next fall, and they have a good choir and support for the arts, for a little school. They’re going to Nationals this year.”
Lea tilted her head to the side. “You’ve really thought about this. I suppose part of this sell was designed for your father if you’re mentioning football again. The boys have gotten a lot bigger since you were in junior high. Do they have a theatre club? Or drama club?”
Blaine knew she was asking because of his father’s intense disapproval of Blaine “wasting his time” in activities involving the theatre. The Warblers had been framed as a possible opportunity for networking and scholarships.
“They have a class for drama and stagecraft, but I don’t think they’ve put on anything in a while. The last guy in charge of it was kind of a predator and got fired.”
“Sounds charming.”
“Please, Mama? Just think about it.” Blaine paused. There were some traits from his mother that he recognized in Kurt. The sarcasm, for one. The way her words cut when she was hurting. “People aren’t going to put on kid gloves with me in college. This is my chance to get back out there. I need to learn to handle myself.”
“Give me some time. I’ll think about it.” She looked at the less than piping hot dish of curry in the middle of the table and touched the side of it with her palm.
“I can heat this up,” Blaine offered. He got up to do so without being asked. Once in the kitchen, he took the two bowls with him and dished them out, putting one and then the other in the microwave.
“Honey...” Lea looked up at Blaine when he returned with a dishtowel and a bowl in either hand. Her lips grew tighter as she watched him sit, then she put her hand on his thigh. “Honey, is McKinley where that boy goes to school?”
Blaine froze. Not because he’d been caught in a lie, but because it simply hadn’t occurred to him to bring it up. Which was probably dumb of him, but it was too late now.
His silence told her what she needed to know, and now she was crying. She covered her cheeks with both hands, shaking her head. His mama thought he was going to Hell. Or he was going to die alone in a hospital bed somewhere. She wasn’t a bad person. She was just raised to believe that. Blaine knew she’d come around. She would. It was just going to take some more time.
“Mama, I know you don’t want me seeing him. I know you’re worried about me, but I’m happy with him. I am. He makes me happy. He makes me feel brave and daring, and maybe a little foolish. Maybe a lot foolish.”
Lea shook her head and stood, turning away from him.
“I’m not doing this to hurt you,” Blaine whispered.
“Oh, baby, I know that. I know.” She touched his head, then folded her arms over herself and left him sitting there at the dining room table alone with the family curry.
***
“You move me.” Kurt’s soft voice drifted into Blaine’s ear, an anodyne, a sweet balm on the fresh wounds of the evening.
Blaine hadn’t meant to start vomiting all of his problems out to Kurt when he’d called. He just wanted to hear his voice. It was the one thing that steadied Blaine and made him feel better about his family, always.
“Me too.” Blaine drew in a deep breath and stepped into his closet. It wasn’t as big as Kurt’s, but for now, it had more clothing. That was just shocking whenever he went to Kurt’s house. Once this week he knew Kurt had been wearing clothing Blaine had left at the Hudmel house to avoid repeating an outfit. As told by Finn, Kurt had explain that it was “I have a boyfriend and you don’t chic.”
Which was just so Kurt.
“What are you doing?”
“Thinking about clothes,” Blaine answered.
Kurt laughed. “Oh, my soulmate.”
Blaine envisioned Kurt putting a hand over his heart as he spoke. His cheeks grew warm at both the words and the image.
“Sorry, I have attention issues when I’m stressed. I wish things were easier for her.”
“Well, you can’t change yourself. What else can you do?” Kurt went quiet, and then, “Did you tell her? Does she know...?”
“I haven’t talked to her about it yet. I was waiting to tell her and Dad together, but he’s not been home. I think she’s figured it out already, though. She calls you ‘That Boy.’”
“Dad called you ‘That Boy’ for a while. Also, ‘That Boy Who Was in Your Bed.’”
That was supposed to make Blaine smile, but it didn’t. ‘Cause parents not accepting your boyfriend sucked. Just because Burt was usually awesome didn’t mean he couldn’t still say hurtful things, or make Kurt very, very upset. They hadn’t even gone that far yet, but their parents were so worked up about it. Like they didn’t think about consequences, or like Kurt could (or would) just slip it in Blaine by accident (and without prep).
“Why did I come up, anyway?”
“Mama’s just having a hard time dealing with everything. With dad gone for so long, and Ti in trouble all the time. And me being queer as a three dollar bill.”
“I hate being away from you more than anything else, y’know. I don’t really care that I’m bored out of my mind in these stupid classes with teachers who don’t care if I learn anything, or if I die in the hallways-”
Blaine’s heart jumped into his throat. “Kurt!”
“-and I don’t care that most of the guys think that I’m going to molest and convert them, or that so many of the kids just think I’m insane now for some reason, or that Glee practice is harder when your back is aching and Rachel has suddenly realized that I’m competition again and therefore must be passive aggressively sniped at until I cease to exist, like that’s ever going to happen, for her or anyone else. It’s that things like this go down, and I’m not there to hold you.”
It took a second after that mini-tirade had finished before Blaine could breathe well enough to reply, “You move me too, Kurt. You know this is why I want to transfer for you, right? It’s the same.”
“Separation sucks. Do you want me to come to your Ti-tervention?”
“That would be nice. I was thinking of bringing David, too. He’s attractive and much more well-spoken than I.”
“You’re well-spoken,” Kurt protested. “You’re a charmer, Mr. Warbler.”
“Not when I’m emotional, I’m not. It’s like I get my words all tangled up in my shoelaces and then just shove both feet in my mouth.”
Kurt breathed softly into the phone. “I thought you were fairly... I mean, I liked your words when you got emotional.”
“How could I live without you, you flattering little penguin?”
Kurt quacked into the phone in response. Blaine was so surprised that he let out a rather loud whoop of laughter. He covered his mouth and hoped he hadn’t woken his mother. He tip-toed out of the closet and hopped onto his bed.
“Is diggin’ on you wrong if we’re different species?”
“Dirty wrong. Shame on you. And a baby penguin, too.”
Blaine turned out his light and crawled under his covers. “It’s getting late.”
“Then hang up and go to bed,” Kurt challenged.
Blaine could hear Kurt setting something down. The clatter of little bottles. Moisturizing time.
“You already look like you’re thirteen. Do you really need to do that every night?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kurt set something else down. “Do you really think I look like I’m thirteen?”
Blaine smiled at the (badly) hidden insecurity in Kurt’s voice. “The sexiest thirteen ever. You make me a pedophile, baby.”
“Oh, shut up.” But Kurt laughed. “Skin care is very important. Especially when you’re as blindingly white as I am.”
“Cream it up, white boy.”
“That sounds even dirtier than most of the things you say. My virgin cheeks are blushing over here.”
“Haha! I’m sure they are.”
“They are! See?”
His phone buzzed as Kurt sent him a picture of himself sucking in his cheeks for a big kissy pucker. But the worst part was the different colored stuff patchworked all over his face. The cream on his cheekbones was reddish, though.
“What??” Blaine shoved his face into his pillow. He was about to howl. Good freakin’ God, he was so glad Kurt had started opening up to him, because he would have been a poorer person without Kurt’s silly side in his life.
“I thought you said I was sexy, Blaine!” Kurt whined.
“Oh... Oh... even with your Yeti mask on, you’re adorable. You’re killing me. Stop it!”
“Oh, fine. I don’t want a dead boyfriend, after all. Who would?”
“I’m never going to get to sleep.”
“Hm. Lie your head down and close your eyes.”
“What?”
“Just listen to your adorable boyfriend.”
“Okay, okay.” Blaine snuggled down under the covers on his side and laid his head down. He smiled at the picture of Kurt a moment longer, and set it as his wallpaper. “My body is ready.”
Kurt breathed in and out deeply, and then began to sing.
***
There had been a pack of lies spread around Kurt Hummel’s return to, and his departure from, William McKinley High.
For starters, none of the Glee clubbers had been aware he was even coming back, so when Mr. Schue had told them he had a little surprise that might help them with Nationals, and Kurt had appeared? The reaction was pretty overblown. There was clapping and hugging and laughing. There was so much excitement that Mr. Schue just sat back, clearly expecting to get nothing useful done during that period.
The other reactions were of confusion and a little concern, but they were quickly drowned out by Tina and Mercedes breaking out into “My Boyfriend’s Back,” which the other kids soon joined (even the guys).
It was so exciting that Finn had chosen to keep his mouth shut and Public Fib Number One was born. That’s what Kurt wanted anyway, and everyone was so happy. Kurt even looked happy, probably from the open-armed welcome home from his friends. Because when Finn had stood out in the parking lot with him only a few hours before, Kurt had looked anything but happy. He’d stared up at the school, clutching his messenger bag, uncertainty written over every line in his body.
“You basically came back to ride our coattails to Nationals, right?” Rachel had asked.
“Obviously, I decided you couldn’t do it without me,” Kurt had breezed.
So no one knew that Carole and Burt had been too tapped out, even after busting their butts trying, to make the tuition for the final quarter of Kurt’s sophomore year at Dalton. They’d barely made the third quarter tuition, but Kurt and Blaine had cannibalized his wardrobe, selling off everything nonessential and worth something.
“I’m not letting you do this. We’re the grown-ups. You’re the kid. We’ll take care of it,” Burt had argued, smacking his palm against the table in frustration.
Kurt had just stubbornly pushed the check back to him. “I’m already there, and the clothes are already sold. I wear the uniform most of the time, anyway. It was just a tease to have a closetful of clothes I can’t wear anywhere. And besides, by the time I had the opportunity to wear them, they would have been out of style or wouldn’t fit because I’m growing like a weed. Take the check!”
But last week, Burt had admitted to them over the dinner table that their efforts to raise tuition again had failed (thanks to previous outstanding bills that had to be paid unless they wanted to end up with the debt collections folks blowing their house down), and they needed to make a decision about where Kurt would be going to school. Kurt had seemed upset at first, but then hid his disappointment, and he and Finn quickly picked up the slack of the conversation, assuring their parents that they could make things go better this time at McKinley, and Kurt was excited to be back with his friends, and they wouldn’t have to make any drastic moves to pay tuition or have Kurt illegally attending a school in another district.
“It’s different now. I’m different. It’ll be okay,” Kurt had assured them.
Because it had to be. Whatever “okay” meant. Finn thought it plain sucked that the only place where it was safe for his brother to go to school you had to pay through your nose, ears, eyes, and throat.
And that had been that. Aside from Rachel demanding that Kurt audition for them again, and he did so later in the week to “As If We Never Said Goodbye.” (Rachel had made Finn watch practically every Streisand movie in existence when they were dating, so he kind of recognized this one from the blur of musicals.) His “audition” had caused more clapping and excitement, except from Rachel who looked a little angry and asked if he’d been working with a vocal coach.
“No, just the Warblers. And Blaine.”
That done, the club had moved into preparing for Nationals. They had, characteristically, not picked songs or soloists yet, but were holding more afternoon practices in addition to the period before lunch that they all shared.
Other lies included ones that had been floating around the school since Kurt had left so suddenly. Finn only knew these because sometimes before practice the girls had talked about new ones that had recently surfaced. They included the one where Kurt had gone off to get a sex change (which the Glee clubbers were careful to avoid mentioning around Kurt) and one where he had been institutionalized at a mental health facility for disturbed youth. One said that he’d tried to kill himself. One said that he’d succeeded and people were covering it up. Another said he was just off to school in France with all the other gay people.
Puck had deliberately spread one that Kurt had killed a dude and gone to the slammer, but not that many people believed it. Some did, though. Puck had been hoping it would give Kurt some cred around the hallways. He seemed pretty proud of his lie, and that anyone bought it.
Meanwhile, Finn watched his brother hold his head high down the hallways the first week back at school, clutching the strap of his messenger bag and scowling at all the surprised and bizarre reactions coming at him.
There were some reactions, though, that required no interpretation. It didn’t take until that first afternoon for a guy to shove Kurt, and to his surprise, the quarterback had come out of nowhere and slammed the big dude into a wall.
Finn didn’t know him. He was a senior, named Johnson, he thought. Or it was just a joke because he was a big guy and they called him “Big” for chuckles. They glared at each other for long enough that Kurt was able to get to his feet and touch his brother’s shoulder lightly.
“That’s my brother you just shoved. Watch where the Hell you’re going,” Finn growled.
“My bad!” Johnson held his hands up with a big dumb grin and walked away.
The two brothers took a breath, and Finn looked down at Kurt.
“Thanks,” Kurt peeped.
“Just let me walk you to your next class.”
***
It was kinda funny. Kurt had complained once that his friends were clueless about what had been happening to him last fall. Blaine had mentioned something like that, too, about his friends at his old school. That they weren’t in it, so they didn’t understand, didn’t even see it, unless it was unavoidable. But Finn had a hard time believing that anyone had really just not noticed, that anyone was as clueless as he had been. Until he was on the inside of the not so funny joke and the only thing people noticed was Kurt’s wardrobe.
“Mr. Schue, if I may?” Rachel got up and stood in front of him before he could answer. “As your Glee club captain, I think that maybe it is time we do another activity wherein my fellow Glee clubbers try to ‘find their voice.’ While I personally have no trouble accessing my voice whenever and wherever I need to, I acknowledge how hard that can be for some of our members with less training and even less experience. And in lieu of finding that voice, perhaps those who have lost theirs might want to... take the bench for Nationals, since we really can’t have any kind of instability in our leads for such an incredibly important event.”
As her little speech went on, her eyes sporadically drifted to Kurt, and eventually they fixed on him intensely, and stayed there. His lips curled upward in an odd, frowning smile and he cocked his head to the side.
“What is your problem?” he asked.
“I’m clearly not the one with a problem. And I’m not the one who will probably be trying to sing Mellencamp or... Metallica, or something.”
“Your outfit is a little butch,” Santana said, casting a wanton gaze at him.
Kurt shot a sour look back at her.
“I think he looks nice today!” Mercedes reached over to feel the fabric of the red and white striped shirt Kurt had on.
“Guys, maybe we just need to back off on this,” Schue started.
“With all due respect, Mr. Schue, if we’re going to trust him with something as supremely important as performing at Nationals in front of hundreds of expectant audience members and talent agents, then we’d better be sure he’s not having yet another identity crisis.” She looked back at him and put her hands on her hips.
Kurt kept his hands on his knee and rolled his eyes. “You’ve never understood fashion, Rachel. Not even a little. This is clearly ‘I have a boyfriend and you don’t chic.’”
The other members howled in laughter and surprise. Mostly because Kurt, although they had already been speculating and gossiping, hadn’t mentioned his relationship with Blaine to most of them yet. Probably just Mercedes.
Santana leaned forward to grab the back of Kurt’s shirt and flip around the label. “Oh, God, this is priceless. It says Blaine.”
Tina clapped her hands together happily. “Blaine!”
“Property of. Don’t forget it.” Kurt snapped his fingers and gave a little smirk at Rachel. “I’m up for a Find Your Voice Week as much as anyone else. Better make it good.”
Rachel’s face pinched together, and she sat in a huff. This was confusing for Finn. He’d thought that she and Kurt had become friends recently.
“It’s just a shirt. What’s the big deal?” Finn asked.
“Seriously. ‘Wear your boyfriend to work day’ is probably the gayest outfit he could come up with,” Puck added. “Even a sequenced gown and a feathered boa wouldn’t beat it. Relax, Rach. He’s still our number one ‘Mo.”
“Shut up!” Finn turned to Puck and popped his arm.
“Ow!”
“Finn!” Schue warned.
“Damn. Okay. Sorry.” Puck rubbed his arm. “I wasn’t trying be a jerk. I’m not the one who just implied he shouldn’t sing with us.” “That’s not what I was saying,” Rachel said, holding up a finger. “I was just concerned for the group.”
“Can we just get on with practice? For the good of the group?” Kurt asked. “This is getting a bit ridiculous. I’ve worn much more scandalous things.”
“I agree. That’s enough, guys.” Schue pressed his hands together. “Nationals aren’t that far away. We can’t afford to get distracted here.”
Because the distraction was the problem. Really? Finn just rubbed his forehead. He’d sort of rather Kurt wear stuff like this. Anything, to make him less of a target. Not that Kurt deserved it, not that he should have to ‘tone it down’ or whatever. Just that Finn didn’t want Kurt getting hurt. But there was no taking that target off his back now.
Everyone in the school knew Kurt’s name, even if they’d never met or talked to him.
***
Finn had been in his room when he heard Kurt and Blaine arguing about something in the upstairs bathroom. He wasn’t sure if it was any of his business, so he stayed in his room screwing around on the internet for a while, then went downstairs for a Dr. Pepper. As he was coming out of the kitchen, his brother was saying his goodbyes to Blaine... with his lips.
It was sort of weird, but it didn’t bother Finn at all to see them kissing. Maybe a year ago, that would have freaked him out, for reasons that didn’t really make much sense now. Instead, it gave Finn a kind of warm feeling. Maybe because it was obvious that Kurt did belong to Blaine now as much as he belonged to any of the members of their family. Kurt was just so noticeably happier with Blaine around. He also trusted Blaine. And if Kurt trusted Blaine, with all of his issues in letting people in, well. Then Finn trusted Blaine.
They didn’t always have places to be as open with all this making out either, so it shouldn’t be a thing for them to do it in their own homes. Finn knew that it would suck if he couldn’t kiss his girlfriend wherever they wanted. That had literally never been an issue for him.
Kurt slipped out of the house to walk Blaine the few feet to his car, as though they needed that extra minute together before parting, and when he returned, he leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms over himself. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Are you guys okay?”
Kurt jumped at Finn’s words, then touched his chest in relief as he realized who it was. “Oh, God, Finn. I didn’t even see you there.”
“I guessed. Did you have a fight?”
“No. He’s just worried about me. And he wants to transfer to McKinley.”
Finn raised his brows and sat on the arm of the big red chair. “You don’t want him there?”
“Well, don’t tell him, but I’d probably die of joy if he were there with me. It’s the dumbest thing, but I really miss him during the day. Still, I’d rather he be tucked away safe and snug at Dalton.”
“I don’t think that’s dumb. I think it’s dumb that you’re not talking to him about that.”
“I have. Blaine has Dalton-brain right now. I think he knows better, but Dalton follows you out into the world and makes you more of an idealist than is safe. We should be able to go wherever we want, and be together, and hold hands down the hallway, and dance together at prom. We should be able to, but really...”
Finn sipped his Dr. Pepper slowly. “I dunno. I don’t think it’s a good idea, him transferring. Not that it wouldn’t be great to go to school with your boyfriend. I get that being away from each other is hard. It’s just that you’re already enough of a target. You’d be a bigger one with Blaine there. Guys will act worse when they see you two, you know. Being lovey.”
Kurt looked down and curled over slightly, as though the words had struck and wounded him.
“I’m sorry, dude. I just-”
“You didn’t say anything wrong. It’s true. I just hate it.”
“I’m sorry straight people are so crazy.”
Kurt laughed softly, which had been Finn’s hope, with that last line. Kurt nodded. “Apology accepted, for all of straight-folk kind.”
“I’ll let ‘em know.” Finn grinned back at Kurt, who seemed to be cheering up a little, and not the fakey big smile cheering, either. Or so Finn thought. Kurt could fake him out sometimes, if he wanted to. He’d done it before.
***
“My body is ready.”
Kurt ignored Blaine’s joke and began to sing: “I think that possibly, maybe, I’m falling for you.”
“Awww.”
“Hush, and let me sing you to sleep,” Kurt ordered. After hearing a giggle from his boyfriend, Kurt began again, “Yes, there’s a chance that I’ve fallen quite hard over you.”
There was this little secret Kurt had, and he wondered if he should tell Blaine. That’s what this song reminded him of. That thing he’d yet to tell Blaine.
“I've seen the paths that your eyes wander down. I wanna come, too... I think that possibly, maybe, I'm falling for you.”
Should he fess up to what a silly, silly creature he was?
“No one understands me quite like you do, through all of the shadowy corners of me...”
He thought that maybe he’d save the story for their wedding dinner, or some special moment along the way so he could see the look on Blaine’s face.
“I never knew just what it was about this old coffee shop I love so much.”
“Love this song,” Blaine murmured sleepily.
After moving away from his vanity, Kurt placed a hand on his chest, imagining Blaine was there with him and he was singing to his beloved in the bed before him. The features of a man on a boy, so handsome and sweet, waiting in those covers for Kurt to come to him.
Silly they were, the two of them. Silly, romantic fools, who wanted nothing more than to spend their honeymoon together and give the rest of the world the finger... Well, maybe Blaine didn’t want to flip off the world, but he surely wanted the world to learn to deal with them. They’d both felt the sting of society’s hatefulness, Blaine sometimes more than himself, since Blaine got it on more than one account. Kurt would never be able to fully understand what Blaine went through because there was no hiding the reality that people where they lived were a bunch of racist assholes, and Blaine could only guess at Kurt’s vantage point, but they guessed as closely as they could. And they held one another up.
Kurt could imagine, sometimes, what it might be like, their future together. A future where they didn’t have to worry about being affectionate in public, and neither of them faced the specter of daily violence. When they would have blessed moments of forgetting that they were gay, and could just be people. Just themselves. Just two people very much in love, and whose love meant as much as anyone else’s.
But they had to get there, first. And some of the silliness fueled Kurt, until then.
“All of the while I never knew... All of the while, all of the while, all of the while, it was you...”
Tilting his head to the side, Kurt listened for Blaine’s breath on the other side of the phone. Blaine would hopefully remember to charge it in the morning, because this wouldn’t be the first time he’d run down the battery by refusing to put the phone down. He hoped he would be able to call Blaine tomorrow.
“Are you asleep, babe?” Kurt waited for a moment, then touched his chest again, smiling as he sat on his bed. “Babe?”
His teeth lightly pressed down into his lip and he closed his eyes, seeing Blaine, in a loose t-shirt and boxers, his eyes closed, his curly hair tousled, his full lips parted just so. Looking so vulnerable and beautiful as he slept. This wasn’t imagination. They’d spent the night together in Blaine’s dorm room before. Chastely, but in one another’s arms.
No, he didn’t need imagination to see Blaine’s sweet face. His bright young thing.
“I have a secret, Blaine,” he whispered. “I thought you should know. Before I met you... “
Kurt listened closely to the sound of Blaine’s breathing. When it didn’t change, he continued,
“Before I met you, I didn’t even like coffee. It was you. It was you I was coming to the coffee shop for.”
Blaine responded after a long silence with a mumbly-moany sound.
Kurt smiled bashfully to himself. “I thought you’d say that.”
Onto Part Two
Warnings: Homophobia, violence, sexual harassment
Includes: angst
Rating: NC-17 overall
Word Count: ~102k
Summary: Due to family monetary struggles, Kurt is forced to go back to McKinley... not that he wants anyone to know the reason. For Kurt and Blaine, though, the biggest hardship is separation. Worried about how his boyfriend is coping, Blaine convinces his mother to let him transfer.
Notes:
For aelora for help_japan. The prompt is a spoiler (except to her, I guess). Suffer in your wondering! (Aside from the warnings.)
AU Post “Original Song.” Ultimately, I decided to stick with my original plans rather than picking up bits from canon, since certain specific developments are not useful for what I’m doing here.
There are thirteen completed parts that I will post over the next three weeks. I don't know what the schedule will be, as I'm preparing for RL stuff.
Part One
A pair of rosy, full lips kissed over the back of a pale neck. Hands moved over thin but firm shoulders, massaging gently and moving downward over the prone body that lay over dark cream carpet. A soft sigh. Sniffing along the neck and taking in a sweet, musky scent.
”Y-you’re going to hate me.”
Fear sparked in his chest when he didn’t even look him in the eye.
Kurt flinched.
Blaine’s hands stilled over Kurt’s now tense back.
As much as the Warblers teased Blaine, all in good fun of course, about his virginal boyfriend flashing Blaine a bit of ankle to get him hot, Kurt was no shrinking violet. He had some issues, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to be close to Blaine. Quite the opposite. Kurt was rather sweetly affectionate and very demonstrative of his interest, when he was feeling good. There were days when they couldn’t keep their hands off of each other, and then there were times when they needed to stop and cool down. Blaine wouldn’t have made Kurt uncomfortable for the world.
So seeing him flinch like that caused worry to quickly swell up in Blaine’s chest. “I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”
”I have to be okay. I’ll be okay because I have to be okay.
“It’s fine. I’m fine.” Kurt rose onto his knees and turned to face Blaine, closing the textbook he had been reading and staring at the floor.
“Just tell me what I did. I promise I won’t be mad. And I won’t do it again,” Blaine promised. Tentatively, he reached forward to touch Kurt’s hand.
“Stop. It isn’t you.”
“So...” Blaine inched forward. Kurt didn’t move away, so Blaine joined his side. “So it’s you? What can I do?”
Blaine didn’t know where else to take him to make him feel safe. Kurt’s bedroom floor seemed pretty innocuous. Oddly enough, he considered taking Kurt into the closet. Small, protected space?
“You don’t have to do anything. I’m fine.” Kurt reached over and touched Blaine’s chin with two fingers. “It’s all right. Please stop worrying about me.”
Not reassured, Blaine put his arm around Kurt’s shoulders and kissed his cheek. Something was wrong, and it killed him that he might not be able to help. He sighed heavily and gave Kurt a squeeze.
He flinched.
Shit.
“Wait... What was that? Are you hurt?” Blaine’s voice shot up and he touched Kurt’s arms as carefully as he could. “Did they hurt you?”
Kurt gave him a faltering little smile and sang, “Been black and blue before, no need to explain-”
“Oh my God, Kurt!”
“It’s not that bad.” Kurt took Blaine’s hands. “It’s just tender.”
Blaine grabbed Kurt’s wrist and tugged. Kurt rose with him and followed as Blaine took them down the hallway.
”We have to find another way. You have to be safe. Does money really matter?”
“I have to be okay. I just have to live through it, that’s all. My parents just don’t have the money, Blaine, and I can’t ask them to sacrifice anything else.”
“Like you?”
“This is promising,” Kurt joked as they entered the bathroom together and Blaine shut the door.
“I wanna see how ‘not that bad’ this is.”
Blaine crossed his arms and raised a brow. Anxiety was buzzing through him and he couldn’t stand still. Kurt frowned, but then unbuttoned his shirt and turned around as he let the soft fabric slip down.
An ugly streak of purple and red shot straight down the creamy pale flesh of Kurt’s back. Blaine’s heart felt like it might escape his chest.
“Not that bad?!”
“It’s just a brui-”
Blaine took Kurt’s shoulders and spun him around so his back faced the mirror. The pain inside his stomach grew, as though he had taken a hit alongside Kurt. “Yeah, that’s a bruise. That’s a hell of a bruise, Kurt.”
Kurt whistled as he looked over his shoulder in the mirror. The attempts at humor had dropped, and he took in the damage solemnly. “Sorry.”
You were supposed to be safe, Blaine thought, fixated on the reflection of Kurt’s abused back.
“You don’t need to apologize to me,” he managed. “Does your dad know?”
“Of course not.”
Blaine stood there ineffectually, staring at Kurt’s naked torso, which would normally be a welcome sight, under better circumstances. His eyes drifted to the the long-healed scar just under Kurt’s ribs, then over the sleek muscles of his abdomen.
Kurt just scrunched his nose up unhappily. “Please don’t say anything.”
“I won’t. It’s just... It’s not okay for you to get hurt like this. I hope you know that.” The wind had left Blaine’s lungs, and he sounded as though he’d been running.
Kurt initiated their embrace, wrapping his arms around Blaine’s shoulders and pressing his cheek against Blaine’s hair. It was odd, how Kurt was comforting him when he was the one... Yes, black and blue. And they’d both done this before. The bruises, hiding them, trying to be braver and stronger than they were. Gingerly, Blaine put his arms around Kurt’s waist.
“Where was Finn when this happened?”
“Probably getting out of Spanish class. He can’t watch me all the time.” Kurt paused. “Anyway, this was my fault.”
“Don’t say things like that!”
“Well, it was. Karofsky was threatening Santana... so I shoved him away before he could get at her.”
Blaine pulled back a little. Kurt’s tongue peeked out over his lower lip, then he sucked the lip in and watched Blaine with big eyes.
“You started it?”
“He started it with her. I owed her one. She kept me from walking right into a Slushy Gauntlet my first week back... I think it was intentional. Her motivations have always been a mystery for the ages.” Kurt’s shoulders slumped over, and he sat against the sink. “When he shoved me back I hit the side of the lockers. The edge of them. That’s why it bruised so badly.”
Blaine shook his head. Burt had gone to talk with Karofsky’s father personally before even proposing the transfer to Kurt, and apparently the two men had come to some understanding. There had been conditions to Kurt’s transfer, but Blaine had never been insensible to how impossible they were to actually enact. Kurt never had been either, but he’d pretended, for his family’s sake.
High school isn’t forever.
“That school is like a war zone.” He took Kurt’s hand and swung it from side to side. “You’re so brave.”
“I’m braver when it’s someone else being pushed around.” Kurt forced a little laugh that only underscored how deeply unfunny this situation was.
Maybe he was joking, but it was true. Blaine wondered, if they gave him someone to protect, would Kurt take these assholes out? But Karofsky wasn’t supposed to be touching Kurt, period.
Blaine pushed his lower lip out. “Santana can take care of herself.”
“Karofsky is three times her size!”
“And ours.” Blaine squeezed Kurt’s hand, feeling as though he needed to scold, or cuddle, or... Well, one or the other. Scolding while cuddling might send mixed signals. “So what happens when your dad gives you a manly slap on the back?”
“Ohhh... That’s not going to be good.” Kurt shook his head and looked up at the ceiling. “I’ll have to suck it up, I guess.”
“You shouldn’t have to. You should tell him.”
“And what, give him more stress? Which he can’t do anything about? The transfer is done, now. Where am I going to go?”
“I seem to remember you not wanting to stress him out before. I seem to remember you tried to take all this on your own shoulders before, too.”
“It’s different now-”
The sound of the front door slamming shut interrupted the natural turn in this argument they kept having. They looked at one another, and Blaine grabbed the shirt and held it out for Kurt to slip back into.
“Yo, Kurt!” Burt called up the stairs. “You home?”
Kurt didn’t answer for a moment as he frantically tried to button up. Blaine covered his mouth and attempted not to laugh. If only they were covering up what Mr. Hummel would think the were covering up.
“We’re in here, Mr. Hummel!” Blaine called back.
Kurt shot him a questioning look. A moment later, the door swung open, and Burt appeared in the doorway.
“What’re you guys doin’?”
“Practicing stage expressions,” Blaine answered with a smidge too much enthusiasm. He turned to the mirror and beamed madly.
Kurt laughed and tented his fingers over his mouth.
Burt raised a brow. “Maybe you should keep workin’ on that.”
“Always!” Blaine said.
“Yeah.” Burt looked over them both then gestured to Kurt with one finger. “You missed a couple of buttons there.”
“Oh.” Kurt looked down and started to fix his shirt.
“Anyone wanna tell me what you were really doin’ up here?”
“Well. We weren’t camping,” Kurt replied dryly.
Blaine blinked as Burt laughed and scratched the side of his head.
“Good. Blaine staying for dinner?”
“I have to get back before curfew,” Blaine explained. “Or they won’t let me out again for a week.”
Burt nodded and gave them a wave as he headed back down the hallway. Kurt led the way back to his bedroom, but now they had to keep the door open.
When Kurt had still been at Dalton, Blaine had to worry about getting Kurt back for curfew. He was the upperclassman, and that had given him the privilege of staying out a bit later than Kurt as well as signing underclassmen out, if he liked. When Kurt had still been at Dalton, they could stay in each other’s rooms and each other’s arms until lights out, if they wanted, meet up between classes, hold hands, kiss in the hallways (sometimes to a merry chorus of Warblers walking by).
When Kurt had been at Dalton, he didn’t come home battered and holding his chin high.
“The tuition here... is kinda steep.”
“Oh no...” Blaine found himself without words. There was nothing to say. The new quarter started Monday. There was only one conclusion to draw from what Kurt had just said, and it wasn’t one Blaine wanted to think about, even though it was an issue that had been on his mind since his first year, when his dad kept grumbling about the tuition and talking about moving again.
Kurt’s hand cupped Blaine’s cheek, and their foreheads met as they leaned on one another.
“We don’t have any other options right now.” Kurt swallowed. “Maybe we can work something out later...”
“I could... I could drain my college fund-”
“You are not doing that.” A faint, loving scold.
Not that Blaine could actually do it without his parents’ approval and involvement, but he wasn’t allowed to think about gutting his future for Kurt, either. His family was secure, yes, but not like the other boys at this school, who could probably fritter away a couple grand to help a friend without much consequence.
Blaine wrapped his arms around Kurt and held him stubbornly. “How could I hate you? I can’t believe your father is letting this happen.”
“He and Carole really did try to come up with the money this time, but the collections agency that the hospital turned us over to put their backs against the wall. That’s why I hadn’t heard about it until now. They’re in a bind. I can’t go here. I can’t not go to school. So Finn and I convinced them I’d be okay. He’ll look out for me. All my friends will.”
“Like they did last time?”
“Can we talk about this?” Blaine sat on the edge of the bed with Kurt.
“There’s nothing more to talk about. I just got a little bruised. It’s fine. I’ve had worse.”
Blaine petted his hands over Kurt’s shoulders with care, then turned him a little and kissed lightly down his back. “I want to come to McKinley.”
“No.”
“Kurt.”
“No, Blaine. Look, your father doesn’t hate me because he’s threatened by my fashion sense. People don’t honk at us on the street because you’re so dashingly dapper.” Kurt’s long, slender fingers petted over Blaine’s chest. “I set off the fire alarms the second I walked into William McKinley High for the first time, and I wasn’t even out then. If you go there attached to me, you’re just going to be one big-”
His finger circled around Blaine’s face and then booped his nose. “-target.”
Blaine knew his lips were dangerously closer to a pout pouting, but he couldn’t hide his hurt. “You don’t think I can take care of you.”
“I would love to get to see you every day at school. I would love to have the feeling of you being there with me. I would love to perform with you again. But I don’t think you transferring to McKinley will solve anything.” Kurt took Blaine’s hand in his own. “What if something happened?”
“You’re not the only one who’s been black and blue before. I’m not afraid.”
“I wouldn’t think less of you either way, you know.” He stared at Blaine’s hand as he rubbed over it with his thumb, then he covered it with his other hand. “I place no judgment on sane responses to insane circumstances.”
They spoke no more of it that night, but instead shared a few hungry kisses before Blaine had to leave to make curfew. They needed to stock up on touches before they parted again.
***
As an added benefit, less homework means more time to focus on my creative aspirations. I’ve been meaning to write a musical about the royal family...
Well, at least I’ll have a great grade point average.
I can spend more time with my family. I do miss them. They’re doing all their Hudmel-family bonding without me!
They have more sports than Dalton. I could join... Cheerios again in the fall.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?
I need to learn to handle myself.
I’m different now. I’m better now.
You said yourself that you regretted running away. Shouldn’t I try to be brave?
Blaine sat down at the dinner table. It had been two days since finding that bruise on Kurt’s back, and Kurt’s too cheerful, nearly incessant excuses for why it was a good thing that he had to change schools again came back to haunt his ears. There was a difference between a stiff upper lip and outright bullshitting, and even though Kurt already had some fine acting abilities, Blaine didn’t buy it. He knew his boyfriend was trying to make the best of a bad situation.
He knew it because Kurt had tried to do the same damn thing when he’d first come to Dalton. A tiny, traumatized thing that jumped at loud noises or whenever anyone but Blaine touched him, and couldn’t believe that the other guys really did like him and weren’t prepped to start making fun of him when he turned his back.
Blaine had been worried at first that he’d been crowding Kurt and keeping him too separated from the other boys, but it had worked itself out. Kurt had used the time to heal, and soon enough had made friends with the other Warblers (almost impossible not to do, actually), adjusted to his classes, and started giving them real smiles.
Now he had to make the transition back to his new old school. Where he had been ignored, taunted, and threatened. So he (as Blaine had at one time, honestly) put on a happy face and spun up excuses as though they would cover him like armor.
Still, the cheerful bullshit excuses were better than the realistic one. The one that Kurt might actually believe, deep down. The one that had made Blaine feel uneasy twinges deep inside himself when Kurt had said it.
Look, Blaine, people are never going to stop bullying me. Not in high school, not in college, not ever. It’s better that I’m used to it. Dalton gets inside you. It gives you hope for something that isn’t there, and sometimes I wonder if it doesn’t make you a little more optimistic than is healthy. My dad is always telling me to be realistic, and try to dress so that people will leave me alone. When you feel safe, you take risks that you otherwise wouldn’t. It’s not good for me to have this fantasy world where no one can hurt me. It makes me forget how many people would kill me just for daring to be less than invisible.
Honestly, how could you go on day-to-day and believe that the world wasn’t in constant molt? Constantly improving itself, and moreover, that people were essentially good? How did you even pick yourself up out of bed?
He knew he didn’t get picked on as often as Kurt, or in quite the same way, and that was... It was just the way it was. It was just people assuming straight until proven guilty. Kurt’s voice, his mannerisms, his intellect, Blaine thought nothing of them, other than that they were part of Kurt and therefore adorable and wonderful. They were part of all the things in him that made them work so well together, and even as a cultural thing, Blaine sort of thought binary gender was dumb and so outdated anyway and his boyfriend was perfect. But everyone else, or most people here in the middle of Ohio, looked at those things and saw something strange, uncanny. Something that shouldn’t be and should be set right as soon as possible.
Blaine understood that. So he sort of got how Kurt could be down on people sometimes. Blaine had been harassed, too, though. He’d been shoved into lockers, pushed down stairs, had books and personal items wrested out of his hands, papers scattered, clothing torn. He’d had guys on the football team in eighth grade (who had once been his friends) refuse to let him into the showers, or deliberately tackle him with all they had on the field. He’d gotten a collarbone broken, once.
The closet had been pretty safe and cozy for Blaine, but at thirteen, when he’d decided to come out, he had some friends in the drama club who were really supportive, and he thought (still did, actually) that there was nothing to be ashamed of. There were gay people all over the world. They were just everywhere when he’d gone to visit his aunt in the Phillipines. Many of them very openly so! He’d decided he would rather be open about who he was than silent and miserable. He could come out, and he could take whatever they threw at him.
But these kids just didn’t stop, and it made Blaine sad that Kurt had never really had that opportunity to stay snug in the closet until he was ready to make that leap of faith. To decide, “Today, I will be brave. I will come out, and it will be okay.” Instead, everyone else had seemed to decide it was okay just to label him and treat him accordingly.
Blaine disliked that kind of behavior. It was important to be able to put aside everyone else’s noise and just hear your own truth long enough to get the courage to come out.
Their situations were also different on other accounts. If people hassled Blaine less about his gender expression, they made up for it in spades with the way they continually failed about race around him, and that had always been a part of his life. People assumed he was a Mexican sometimes, and made weird racial comments about that. (And what the hell difference did it make if he was Mexican??) They tried to guess where he was “really from,” commented on his English proficiency, or asked him questions about other Asians, as though he had a chip in his neck to identify people’s genealogical history. (Doot doot doot... Filipino! Doot doot doot... South Korean!) Some of the boys at the church he’d gone to as a child called him white boy, and that really pissed him off. He was proud of his heritage, and it hurt to have it erased like that, no matter who it was coming from. In seventh grade, he’d gotten into a fistfight with a friend (now former friend) when he’d implied one of their classmates would grow up to be a hooker because she was Asian.
He hadn’t considered how coming out would play into that mess that was already there. But sweet Jeebus, for some people it was a really big deal, he had learned. People were so conveniently traditional sometimes... and so conveniently religious others. There was a joke in there somewhere, if Blaine ever went looking for it.
So in short, Blaine sat down to the dinner table with a head full of understanding that some people were quite mean, and quite stupid, and quite bad, but he did believe that underneath it all, when you got people away from bad social conditioning, they were good, and good things could happen, and did. He believed that people could be taught, educated, and that he could do that with most people, if he could find ways to make them listen.
Kurt did some educating... but usually only with people he thought were worth his time. Blaine understood this, too, because when you found yourself surrounded with ignorance all the freakin’ time, there was a risk of burning yourself out in trying to educate someone who was just suckling on your energy. That was why Kurt needed someone by his side to cover him.
He did have his friends and his brother. He didn’t really need a little bodyguard following him around the hallways, so much as he needed a shield to make him feel secure. Blaine loved him, and missed him, and he didn’t want Kurt shutting himself off again. He didn’t want to see him broken down and exhausted by the evils of the world. This separation was killing Blaine because, though he knew Kurt cared about him deeply, and while they still spent time together, he was missing things. He was missing what was happening to his boyfriend, and he wanted to help him stay open and smiling instead of closing himself off again.
He took a breath as his mother sat down to the table. “Mama? Can I talk to you about something?”
Lea Anderson looked over him, with narrow, tired eyes as she arched a brow and pursed her lips. Her temper had been shorter these days. It was getting harder on the family the longer Blaine’s father was gone. He hadn’t seen his father that much since they’d transferred him to Dalton, but he’d disappeared on some ‘business trip’ and that had been two weeks ago.
“I’m sorry, baby.” She put her forehead to her hand and sighed deeply. “I just got off the phone with your sister, and she’s in trouble at school.”
“She’s not coming home this weekend?” Blaine rubbed his fingers over his lips and gauged his mother’s mood. This was frustration. And maybe a little bit of feeling overwhelmed, and a lot of feeling cut off from her babies.
Okay, this just became about more than his boyfriend.
“No, she got caught with a ‘prohibited substance’ behind the art building. I suspect cigarettes, even though they are acting like it was LSD.”
His mother’s dry humor didn’t exactly land. Blaine rose and walked around their long family dinner table to sit by his mother and hold her. She wasn’t crying, just staring at the tablecloth.
“I can talk to her. Do you want me to go up to see her?”
“She’s your older sister. You shouldn’t have to be the one taking care of her.”
“But I want to.”
And right now he sort of wanted to just tell his older sister how much she was putting on their mom. Tianna wasn’t a bad girl. Not really. She just didn’t think about things before she did them. And even though their parents didn’t know this, her last boyfriend, this truly awful college guy Jason who was too old for Ti, had broken her to little pieces a few months ago and left her with a pregnancy to deal with by herself. He had even refused to pony up the cash or even a ride to help her, and Blaine had ended up driving her to the clinic when she was able to get away from school.
Blaine sort of thought the prohibited substance might be alcohol. They didn’t know that Ti drank sometimes, either. Jason had bought her alcohol, among other things. Things like cigarettes. Thongs. A weird little vibrating thing that looked like a tentacle.
“What do you think of this house, Blaine?” Lea gazed at him with red-lined eyes. Okay, someone had been smoking, and just covered it up with Chanel No. 5.
Blaine shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s... It’s home.”
“I’m thinking of getting an apartment. This house just seems so big with the rooms for you and your sister and your father’s office. I don’t know why I’m keeping it up when your father is away on business so much and you and your sister are hardly ever home.”
“I’ll talk to Ti. I can get her to come home more often,” Blaine said, hearing the slight bend of strain in his voice.
Lea didn’t seem to notice. “I’ve talked with the school. They’re willing to keep her, as long as she doesn’t leave campus for the rest of the semester.”
Blaine looked down at his thighs. He felt sick at the thought of not seeing his sister for the next two and a half months.
His mama hadn’t been like this. She hadn’t been like this since she and his dad had that fight just after Valentine’s Day, and Blaine had made an ass out of himself drinking too much of that stuff from Rachel’s dads’ liquor cabinet that tasted like pink. Kurt had crashed the party with him as a distraction, and boy howdy, had it ever distracted.
“I’m sorry, baby. What did you want to talk about?”
Their food had cooled by now, but Blaine was no longer hungry.
“It’s nothing, Mama.”
“No. You wanted something. I interrupted you. That was rude of me. I just needed to tell you what was happening with Ti, bless her stupid heart.”
The sharp turn of his mother’s words was jarring. Blaine licked his lips. “It’s not important. Let’s just have dinner.”
“You’re my good boy. What do you need? Anything, baby.” She hugged him around his shoulders and kissed his cheek.
“I was going to ask to transfer to another school. Um. McKinley. It’s not that far from here.”
His mother at him with a little frown. “Isn’t that a public school? Baby... You know what happened last time.”
“I do, but... This is a different school. No one knows me there. Less homework will mean I can keep my GPA up and have more time for the extra curriculars that colleges want. I’ll be able to spend more time with the family, too. Oh, and they have sports. I could play football again next fall, and they have a good choir and support for the arts, for a little school. They’re going to Nationals this year.”
Lea tilted her head to the side. “You’ve really thought about this. I suppose part of this sell was designed for your father if you’re mentioning football again. The boys have gotten a lot bigger since you were in junior high. Do they have a theatre club? Or drama club?”
Blaine knew she was asking because of his father’s intense disapproval of Blaine “wasting his time” in activities involving the theatre. The Warblers had been framed as a possible opportunity for networking and scholarships.
“They have a class for drama and stagecraft, but I don’t think they’ve put on anything in a while. The last guy in charge of it was kind of a predator and got fired.”
“Sounds charming.”
“Please, Mama? Just think about it.” Blaine paused. There were some traits from his mother that he recognized in Kurt. The sarcasm, for one. The way her words cut when she was hurting. “People aren’t going to put on kid gloves with me in college. This is my chance to get back out there. I need to learn to handle myself.”
“Give me some time. I’ll think about it.” She looked at the less than piping hot dish of curry in the middle of the table and touched the side of it with her palm.
“I can heat this up,” Blaine offered. He got up to do so without being asked. Once in the kitchen, he took the two bowls with him and dished them out, putting one and then the other in the microwave.
“Honey...” Lea looked up at Blaine when he returned with a dishtowel and a bowl in either hand. Her lips grew tighter as she watched him sit, then she put her hand on his thigh. “Honey, is McKinley where that boy goes to school?”
Blaine froze. Not because he’d been caught in a lie, but because it simply hadn’t occurred to him to bring it up. Which was probably dumb of him, but it was too late now.
His silence told her what she needed to know, and now she was crying. She covered her cheeks with both hands, shaking her head. His mama thought he was going to Hell. Or he was going to die alone in a hospital bed somewhere. She wasn’t a bad person. She was just raised to believe that. Blaine knew she’d come around. She would. It was just going to take some more time.
“Mama, I know you don’t want me seeing him. I know you’re worried about me, but I’m happy with him. I am. He makes me happy. He makes me feel brave and daring, and maybe a little foolish. Maybe a lot foolish.”
Lea shook her head and stood, turning away from him.
“I’m not doing this to hurt you,” Blaine whispered.
“Oh, baby, I know that. I know.” She touched his head, then folded her arms over herself and left him sitting there at the dining room table alone with the family curry.
***
“You move me.” Kurt’s soft voice drifted into Blaine’s ear, an anodyne, a sweet balm on the fresh wounds of the evening.
Blaine hadn’t meant to start vomiting all of his problems out to Kurt when he’d called. He just wanted to hear his voice. It was the one thing that steadied Blaine and made him feel better about his family, always.
“Me too.” Blaine drew in a deep breath and stepped into his closet. It wasn’t as big as Kurt’s, but for now, it had more clothing. That was just shocking whenever he went to Kurt’s house. Once this week he knew Kurt had been wearing clothing Blaine had left at the Hudmel house to avoid repeating an outfit. As told by Finn, Kurt had explain that it was “I have a boyfriend and you don’t chic.”
Which was just so Kurt.
“What are you doing?”
“Thinking about clothes,” Blaine answered.
Kurt laughed. “Oh, my soulmate.”
Blaine envisioned Kurt putting a hand over his heart as he spoke. His cheeks grew warm at both the words and the image.
“Sorry, I have attention issues when I’m stressed. I wish things were easier for her.”
“Well, you can’t change yourself. What else can you do?” Kurt went quiet, and then, “Did you tell her? Does she know...?”
“I haven’t talked to her about it yet. I was waiting to tell her and Dad together, but he’s not been home. I think she’s figured it out already, though. She calls you ‘That Boy.’”
“Dad called you ‘That Boy’ for a while. Also, ‘That Boy Who Was in Your Bed.’”
That was supposed to make Blaine smile, but it didn’t. ‘Cause parents not accepting your boyfriend sucked. Just because Burt was usually awesome didn’t mean he couldn’t still say hurtful things, or make Kurt very, very upset. They hadn’t even gone that far yet, but their parents were so worked up about it. Like they didn’t think about consequences, or like Kurt could (or would) just slip it in Blaine by accident (and without prep).
“Why did I come up, anyway?”
“Mama’s just having a hard time dealing with everything. With dad gone for so long, and Ti in trouble all the time. And me being queer as a three dollar bill.”
“I hate being away from you more than anything else, y’know. I don’t really care that I’m bored out of my mind in these stupid classes with teachers who don’t care if I learn anything, or if I die in the hallways-”
Blaine’s heart jumped into his throat. “Kurt!”
“-and I don’t care that most of the guys think that I’m going to molest and convert them, or that so many of the kids just think I’m insane now for some reason, or that Glee practice is harder when your back is aching and Rachel has suddenly realized that I’m competition again and therefore must be passive aggressively sniped at until I cease to exist, like that’s ever going to happen, for her or anyone else. It’s that things like this go down, and I’m not there to hold you.”
It took a second after that mini-tirade had finished before Blaine could breathe well enough to reply, “You move me too, Kurt. You know this is why I want to transfer for you, right? It’s the same.”
“Separation sucks. Do you want me to come to your Ti-tervention?”
“That would be nice. I was thinking of bringing David, too. He’s attractive and much more well-spoken than I.”
“You’re well-spoken,” Kurt protested. “You’re a charmer, Mr. Warbler.”
“Not when I’m emotional, I’m not. It’s like I get my words all tangled up in my shoelaces and then just shove both feet in my mouth.”
Kurt breathed softly into the phone. “I thought you were fairly... I mean, I liked your words when you got emotional.”
“How could I live without you, you flattering little penguin?”
Kurt quacked into the phone in response. Blaine was so surprised that he let out a rather loud whoop of laughter. He covered his mouth and hoped he hadn’t woken his mother. He tip-toed out of the closet and hopped onto his bed.
“Is diggin’ on you wrong if we’re different species?”
“Dirty wrong. Shame on you. And a baby penguin, too.”
Blaine turned out his light and crawled under his covers. “It’s getting late.”
“Then hang up and go to bed,” Kurt challenged.
Blaine could hear Kurt setting something down. The clatter of little bottles. Moisturizing time.
“You already look like you’re thirteen. Do you really need to do that every night?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kurt set something else down. “Do you really think I look like I’m thirteen?”
Blaine smiled at the (badly) hidden insecurity in Kurt’s voice. “The sexiest thirteen ever. You make me a pedophile, baby.”
“Oh, shut up.” But Kurt laughed. “Skin care is very important. Especially when you’re as blindingly white as I am.”
“Cream it up, white boy.”
“That sounds even dirtier than most of the things you say. My virgin cheeks are blushing over here.”
“Haha! I’m sure they are.”
“They are! See?”
His phone buzzed as Kurt sent him a picture of himself sucking in his cheeks for a big kissy pucker. But the worst part was the different colored stuff patchworked all over his face. The cream on his cheekbones was reddish, though.
“What??” Blaine shoved his face into his pillow. He was about to howl. Good freakin’ God, he was so glad Kurt had started opening up to him, because he would have been a poorer person without Kurt’s silly side in his life.
“I thought you said I was sexy, Blaine!” Kurt whined.
“Oh... Oh... even with your Yeti mask on, you’re adorable. You’re killing me. Stop it!”
“Oh, fine. I don’t want a dead boyfriend, after all. Who would?”
“I’m never going to get to sleep.”
“Hm. Lie your head down and close your eyes.”
“What?”
“Just listen to your adorable boyfriend.”
“Okay, okay.” Blaine snuggled down under the covers on his side and laid his head down. He smiled at the picture of Kurt a moment longer, and set it as his wallpaper. “My body is ready.”
Kurt breathed in and out deeply, and then began to sing.
***
There had been a pack of lies spread around Kurt Hummel’s return to, and his departure from, William McKinley High.
For starters, none of the Glee clubbers had been aware he was even coming back, so when Mr. Schue had told them he had a little surprise that might help them with Nationals, and Kurt had appeared? The reaction was pretty overblown. There was clapping and hugging and laughing. There was so much excitement that Mr. Schue just sat back, clearly expecting to get nothing useful done during that period.
The other reactions were of confusion and a little concern, but they were quickly drowned out by Tina and Mercedes breaking out into “My Boyfriend’s Back,” which the other kids soon joined (even the guys).
It was so exciting that Finn had chosen to keep his mouth shut and Public Fib Number One was born. That’s what Kurt wanted anyway, and everyone was so happy. Kurt even looked happy, probably from the open-armed welcome home from his friends. Because when Finn had stood out in the parking lot with him only a few hours before, Kurt had looked anything but happy. He’d stared up at the school, clutching his messenger bag, uncertainty written over every line in his body.
“You basically came back to ride our coattails to Nationals, right?” Rachel had asked.
“Obviously, I decided you couldn’t do it without me,” Kurt had breezed.
So no one knew that Carole and Burt had been too tapped out, even after busting their butts trying, to make the tuition for the final quarter of Kurt’s sophomore year at Dalton. They’d barely made the third quarter tuition, but Kurt and Blaine had cannibalized his wardrobe, selling off everything nonessential and worth something.
“I’m not letting you do this. We’re the grown-ups. You’re the kid. We’ll take care of it,” Burt had argued, smacking his palm against the table in frustration.
Kurt had just stubbornly pushed the check back to him. “I’m already there, and the clothes are already sold. I wear the uniform most of the time, anyway. It was just a tease to have a closetful of clothes I can’t wear anywhere. And besides, by the time I had the opportunity to wear them, they would have been out of style or wouldn’t fit because I’m growing like a weed. Take the check!”
But last week, Burt had admitted to them over the dinner table that their efforts to raise tuition again had failed (thanks to previous outstanding bills that had to be paid unless they wanted to end up with the debt collections folks blowing their house down), and they needed to make a decision about where Kurt would be going to school. Kurt had seemed upset at first, but then hid his disappointment, and he and Finn quickly picked up the slack of the conversation, assuring their parents that they could make things go better this time at McKinley, and Kurt was excited to be back with his friends, and they wouldn’t have to make any drastic moves to pay tuition or have Kurt illegally attending a school in another district.
“It’s different now. I’m different. It’ll be okay,” Kurt had assured them.
Because it had to be. Whatever “okay” meant. Finn thought it plain sucked that the only place where it was safe for his brother to go to school you had to pay through your nose, ears, eyes, and throat.
And that had been that. Aside from Rachel demanding that Kurt audition for them again, and he did so later in the week to “As If We Never Said Goodbye.” (Rachel had made Finn watch practically every Streisand movie in existence when they were dating, so he kind of recognized this one from the blur of musicals.) His “audition” had caused more clapping and excitement, except from Rachel who looked a little angry and asked if he’d been working with a vocal coach.
“No, just the Warblers. And Blaine.”
That done, the club had moved into preparing for Nationals. They had, characteristically, not picked songs or soloists yet, but were holding more afternoon practices in addition to the period before lunch that they all shared.
Other lies included ones that had been floating around the school since Kurt had left so suddenly. Finn only knew these because sometimes before practice the girls had talked about new ones that had recently surfaced. They included the one where Kurt had gone off to get a sex change (which the Glee clubbers were careful to avoid mentioning around Kurt) and one where he had been institutionalized at a mental health facility for disturbed youth. One said that he’d tried to kill himself. One said that he’d succeeded and people were covering it up. Another said he was just off to school in France with all the other gay people.
Puck had deliberately spread one that Kurt had killed a dude and gone to the slammer, but not that many people believed it. Some did, though. Puck had been hoping it would give Kurt some cred around the hallways. He seemed pretty proud of his lie, and that anyone bought it.
Meanwhile, Finn watched his brother hold his head high down the hallways the first week back at school, clutching the strap of his messenger bag and scowling at all the surprised and bizarre reactions coming at him.
There were some reactions, though, that required no interpretation. It didn’t take until that first afternoon for a guy to shove Kurt, and to his surprise, the quarterback had come out of nowhere and slammed the big dude into a wall.
Finn didn’t know him. He was a senior, named Johnson, he thought. Or it was just a joke because he was a big guy and they called him “Big” for chuckles. They glared at each other for long enough that Kurt was able to get to his feet and touch his brother’s shoulder lightly.
“That’s my brother you just shoved. Watch where the Hell you’re going,” Finn growled.
“My bad!” Johnson held his hands up with a big dumb grin and walked away.
The two brothers took a breath, and Finn looked down at Kurt.
“Thanks,” Kurt peeped.
“Just let me walk you to your next class.”
***
It was kinda funny. Kurt had complained once that his friends were clueless about what had been happening to him last fall. Blaine had mentioned something like that, too, about his friends at his old school. That they weren’t in it, so they didn’t understand, didn’t even see it, unless it was unavoidable. But Finn had a hard time believing that anyone had really just not noticed, that anyone was as clueless as he had been. Until he was on the inside of the not so funny joke and the only thing people noticed was Kurt’s wardrobe.
“Mr. Schue, if I may?” Rachel got up and stood in front of him before he could answer. “As your Glee club captain, I think that maybe it is time we do another activity wherein my fellow Glee clubbers try to ‘find their voice.’ While I personally have no trouble accessing my voice whenever and wherever I need to, I acknowledge how hard that can be for some of our members with less training and even less experience. And in lieu of finding that voice, perhaps those who have lost theirs might want to... take the bench for Nationals, since we really can’t have any kind of instability in our leads for such an incredibly important event.”
As her little speech went on, her eyes sporadically drifted to Kurt, and eventually they fixed on him intensely, and stayed there. His lips curled upward in an odd, frowning smile and he cocked his head to the side.
“What is your problem?” he asked.
“I’m clearly not the one with a problem. And I’m not the one who will probably be trying to sing Mellencamp or... Metallica, or something.”
“Your outfit is a little butch,” Santana said, casting a wanton gaze at him.
Kurt shot a sour look back at her.
“I think he looks nice today!” Mercedes reached over to feel the fabric of the red and white striped shirt Kurt had on.
“Guys, maybe we just need to back off on this,” Schue started.
“With all due respect, Mr. Schue, if we’re going to trust him with something as supremely important as performing at Nationals in front of hundreds of expectant audience members and talent agents, then we’d better be sure he’s not having yet another identity crisis.” She looked back at him and put her hands on her hips.
Kurt kept his hands on his knee and rolled his eyes. “You’ve never understood fashion, Rachel. Not even a little. This is clearly ‘I have a boyfriend and you don’t chic.’”
The other members howled in laughter and surprise. Mostly because Kurt, although they had already been speculating and gossiping, hadn’t mentioned his relationship with Blaine to most of them yet. Probably just Mercedes.
Santana leaned forward to grab the back of Kurt’s shirt and flip around the label. “Oh, God, this is priceless. It says Blaine.”
Tina clapped her hands together happily. “Blaine!”
“Property of. Don’t forget it.” Kurt snapped his fingers and gave a little smirk at Rachel. “I’m up for a Find Your Voice Week as much as anyone else. Better make it good.”
Rachel’s face pinched together, and she sat in a huff. This was confusing for Finn. He’d thought that she and Kurt had become friends recently.
“It’s just a shirt. What’s the big deal?” Finn asked.
“Seriously. ‘Wear your boyfriend to work day’ is probably the gayest outfit he could come up with,” Puck added. “Even a sequenced gown and a feathered boa wouldn’t beat it. Relax, Rach. He’s still our number one ‘Mo.”
“Shut up!” Finn turned to Puck and popped his arm.
“Ow!”
“Finn!” Schue warned.
“Damn. Okay. Sorry.” Puck rubbed his arm. “I wasn’t trying be a jerk. I’m not the one who just implied he shouldn’t sing with us.” “That’s not what I was saying,” Rachel said, holding up a finger. “I was just concerned for the group.”
“Can we just get on with practice? For the good of the group?” Kurt asked. “This is getting a bit ridiculous. I’ve worn much more scandalous things.”
“I agree. That’s enough, guys.” Schue pressed his hands together. “Nationals aren’t that far away. We can’t afford to get distracted here.”
Because the distraction was the problem. Really? Finn just rubbed his forehead. He’d sort of rather Kurt wear stuff like this. Anything, to make him less of a target. Not that Kurt deserved it, not that he should have to ‘tone it down’ or whatever. Just that Finn didn’t want Kurt getting hurt. But there was no taking that target off his back now.
Everyone in the school knew Kurt’s name, even if they’d never met or talked to him.
***
Finn had been in his room when he heard Kurt and Blaine arguing about something in the upstairs bathroom. He wasn’t sure if it was any of his business, so he stayed in his room screwing around on the internet for a while, then went downstairs for a Dr. Pepper. As he was coming out of the kitchen, his brother was saying his goodbyes to Blaine... with his lips.
It was sort of weird, but it didn’t bother Finn at all to see them kissing. Maybe a year ago, that would have freaked him out, for reasons that didn’t really make much sense now. Instead, it gave Finn a kind of warm feeling. Maybe because it was obvious that Kurt did belong to Blaine now as much as he belonged to any of the members of their family. Kurt was just so noticeably happier with Blaine around. He also trusted Blaine. And if Kurt trusted Blaine, with all of his issues in letting people in, well. Then Finn trusted Blaine.
They didn’t always have places to be as open with all this making out either, so it shouldn’t be a thing for them to do it in their own homes. Finn knew that it would suck if he couldn’t kiss his girlfriend wherever they wanted. That had literally never been an issue for him.
Kurt slipped out of the house to walk Blaine the few feet to his car, as though they needed that extra minute together before parting, and when he returned, he leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms over himself. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Are you guys okay?”
Kurt jumped at Finn’s words, then touched his chest in relief as he realized who it was. “Oh, God, Finn. I didn’t even see you there.”
“I guessed. Did you have a fight?”
“No. He’s just worried about me. And he wants to transfer to McKinley.”
Finn raised his brows and sat on the arm of the big red chair. “You don’t want him there?”
“Well, don’t tell him, but I’d probably die of joy if he were there with me. It’s the dumbest thing, but I really miss him during the day. Still, I’d rather he be tucked away safe and snug at Dalton.”
“I don’t think that’s dumb. I think it’s dumb that you’re not talking to him about that.”
“I have. Blaine has Dalton-brain right now. I think he knows better, but Dalton follows you out into the world and makes you more of an idealist than is safe. We should be able to go wherever we want, and be together, and hold hands down the hallway, and dance together at prom. We should be able to, but really...”
Finn sipped his Dr. Pepper slowly. “I dunno. I don’t think it’s a good idea, him transferring. Not that it wouldn’t be great to go to school with your boyfriend. I get that being away from each other is hard. It’s just that you’re already enough of a target. You’d be a bigger one with Blaine there. Guys will act worse when they see you two, you know. Being lovey.”
Kurt looked down and curled over slightly, as though the words had struck and wounded him.
“I’m sorry, dude. I just-”
“You didn’t say anything wrong. It’s true. I just hate it.”
“I’m sorry straight people are so crazy.”
Kurt laughed softly, which had been Finn’s hope, with that last line. Kurt nodded. “Apology accepted, for all of straight-folk kind.”
“I’ll let ‘em know.” Finn grinned back at Kurt, who seemed to be cheering up a little, and not the fakey big smile cheering, either. Or so Finn thought. Kurt could fake him out sometimes, if he wanted to. He’d done it before.
***
“My body is ready.”
Kurt ignored Blaine’s joke and began to sing: “I think that possibly, maybe, I’m falling for you.”
“Awww.”
“Hush, and let me sing you to sleep,” Kurt ordered. After hearing a giggle from his boyfriend, Kurt began again, “Yes, there’s a chance that I’ve fallen quite hard over you.”
There was this little secret Kurt had, and he wondered if he should tell Blaine. That’s what this song reminded him of. That thing he’d yet to tell Blaine.
“I've seen the paths that your eyes wander down. I wanna come, too... I think that possibly, maybe, I'm falling for you.”
Should he fess up to what a silly, silly creature he was?
“No one understands me quite like you do, through all of the shadowy corners of me...”
He thought that maybe he’d save the story for their wedding dinner, or some special moment along the way so he could see the look on Blaine’s face.
“I never knew just what it was about this old coffee shop I love so much.”
“Love this song,” Blaine murmured sleepily.
After moving away from his vanity, Kurt placed a hand on his chest, imagining Blaine was there with him and he was singing to his beloved in the bed before him. The features of a man on a boy, so handsome and sweet, waiting in those covers for Kurt to come to him.
Silly they were, the two of them. Silly, romantic fools, who wanted nothing more than to spend their honeymoon together and give the rest of the world the finger... Well, maybe Blaine didn’t want to flip off the world, but he surely wanted the world to learn to deal with them. They’d both felt the sting of society’s hatefulness, Blaine sometimes more than himself, since Blaine got it on more than one account. Kurt would never be able to fully understand what Blaine went through because there was no hiding the reality that people where they lived were a bunch of racist assholes, and Blaine could only guess at Kurt’s vantage point, but they guessed as closely as they could. And they held one another up.
Kurt could imagine, sometimes, what it might be like, their future together. A future where they didn’t have to worry about being affectionate in public, and neither of them faced the specter of daily violence. When they would have blessed moments of forgetting that they were gay, and could just be people. Just themselves. Just two people very much in love, and whose love meant as much as anyone else’s.
But they had to get there, first. And some of the silliness fueled Kurt, until then.
“All of the while I never knew... All of the while, all of the while, all of the while, it was you...”
Tilting his head to the side, Kurt listened for Blaine’s breath on the other side of the phone. Blaine would hopefully remember to charge it in the morning, because this wouldn’t be the first time he’d run down the battery by refusing to put the phone down. He hoped he would be able to call Blaine tomorrow.
“Are you asleep, babe?” Kurt waited for a moment, then touched his chest again, smiling as he sat on his bed. “Babe?”
His teeth lightly pressed down into his lip and he closed his eyes, seeing Blaine, in a loose t-shirt and boxers, his eyes closed, his curly hair tousled, his full lips parted just so. Looking so vulnerable and beautiful as he slept. This wasn’t imagination. They’d spent the night together in Blaine’s dorm room before. Chastely, but in one another’s arms.
No, he didn’t need imagination to see Blaine’s sweet face. His bright young thing.
“I have a secret, Blaine,” he whispered. “I thought you should know. Before I met you... “
Kurt listened closely to the sound of Blaine’s breathing. When it didn’t change, he continued,
“Before I met you, I didn’t even like coffee. It was you. It was you I was coming to the coffee shop for.”
Blaine responded after a long silence with a mumbly-moany sound.
Kurt smiled bashfully to himself. “I thought you’d say that.”
Onto Part Two