Glee!fic: And Dance
And Dance, a epilogue to Truth & Consequences (prologue, part I, part II, part III). You may only need to read the prologue to have a clue what's going on; it may work as a standalone even, you only have to join a few dots to guess what came before.
Disclaimer: Ho my god so not mine.
Rating: R just for, you know, everything.
Warnings and spoilers: Well, spoilers for maybe everything, and warnings that while this is fairly chipper, you have to wade through a lot of angst to get here. If you've read the rest already this is a walk in the bloody park, though =P
Summary: If you've got to limp, do it in style.
Note: Why yes I *can* pull a happy ending out of my arse whatever else came before, why do you ask?
If anyone apart from Kurt knows how Kurt really is, it's Blaine. He'd worried for a long time that he didn't know, because before he had known everything about Kurt, they hid nothing from each other, they trusted each other with everything and anything, with their guarded heartfelt secrets and a half-second's flitted thought - but then Kurt lost a week, and lost another week after that, and just lost a lot, all at once. And Blaine found himself helpless, he couldn't give Kurt back the things that had been taken from him and Kurt didn't want to talk about it, and for this to be done to them - everything they both lost and then this wedge between them, that was too much. That wasn't fair. How could taking this from Kurt after he'd already lost so much ever be fair?
But if Blaine does know Kurt, and he believes whenever Kurt looks at him like that that he does, then he knows. He knows that Kurt's fine, really. He has wobbles, he falters, but he never fails to pick himself up again. Blaine's there in case he needs a hand but he rarely does. Alone in his room sometimes he'll clutch at Blaine and Blaine will know, and will tighten his arms around him, but usually he's fine. Same old always-new Kurt, shiny as a spring morning every day, and whatever else might happen Blaine does know that Kurt loves him. That he never falters in. Whatever crap they go through, Blaine never feels not loved. So he'll give anything he can, because what he gets back in return is just such an endless relief.
Walking away from Dalton was hard. Or rather, walking away from the Warblers was hard, Dalton he misses only rarely but them he misses painfully, understands the half-life Kurt led at Dalton now, his mind always elsewhere, nothing ever quite filling that hole. But he chose this. He made this decision, and Kurt never did, and that makes all the difference in the world. Blaine accepts that he misses his friends, and there's a really happy sadness about keeping in touch with them. All Kurt felt then was isolation and uncertainty, not really right at Dalton, unable to be right at McKinley, and who was really on his side if no-one had saved him from this?
He's fine though, Blaine's bright strong boy. Shrugs it off his shoulders and sticks diamonds on his crutch. If you've got to limp, do it in style. In Kurt's room they still dance, Kurt leaning on Blaine and the crutch, letting himself be led. Blaine knows it won't be long until he's taking the lead again, determined and delighted with it. He doesn't need to lean on Blaine. It's just nice, doing it for a while.
*
He doesn't really know what to make of Kurt's glee club. God they are loud, it's impossible to get a word in edgeways, he keeps looking at Mr Schuester thinking, Aren't you going to call any of this to order? but he just sits there digging the end of his pen into his chin and frowning at them all like he's maybe never seen teenagers before. Kurt touches his hand at the side of his seat and Blaine slips his fingers through his, and now he really understands why Kurt never seemed one of the Warblers, he was just performing with them for a bit - this is like trying to scream sense in a lunatic asylum: if you try, you just end up looking like another one of the inmates.
Plus Blaine hates Mr Schuester in a way that surprises him. He usually doesn't hate adults because he might disagree with them or expect more of them but in the end, he respects them. He doesn't respect Will Schuester. He thinks that he's a failure as an educator and a guardian. He knew what Kurt went through at this school and he didn't do a thing to stop it, and yes Kurt told him not to but Kurt was sixteen and sixteen year olds don't get a say in it, Jesus. So Blaine avoids eye contact with him as much as he can in case the man might see it, mostly focuses on Kurt in glee club, or on whoever's performing. They are all really good. Even the weaker singers are great performers, they just enjoy themselves so much, and Blaine can happily get lost in that.
He performs for Kurt, mostly. He loves making him smile like that. He's nervous of performing for them. He's nervous that they'll ask him to sing against the Warblers and Blaine can't; he does realise pretty early on that everyone is really just out for their own solo and they're not going to ask anyone they think might be better to take it from them, though.
Kurt leans across and murmurs to him, "If we come up against them, you're pretty easy to just hide in the back, you know." and gives him a Yeah I totally did just say that smile, and Blaine gives him the Why am I so ridiculously in love with you again? eyebrows.
*
The football team has been nearly emptied by the mass expulsions following what they did to Kurt. The only remaining members are the guys in glee club, and when they hold try outs Kurt and Blaine watch from the bleachers, Kurt with his bad knee stretched out, hands over it as if to warm it, frowning a little. "I used to be on the football team," he murmurs, watching some kid run to kick the ball and fall face flat.
Blaine looks across at him, eyebrows lowered, waiting for Kurt to qualify that with something that will make it make sense. He doesn't, though, so Blaine says, "Really?"
Kurt shrugs. "Kicker. I can't now, obviously." He indicates the knee. "Not that I would anyway. It's incredibly dull, I don't know what Finn sees in it."
"So," Blaine says, still trying to make this make sense, "at what point are you going to stop surprising the hell out of me actually all the time?"
Kurt says, "What makes you think I intend to stop?" and the grin flickers, wicked, before he looks back to the football field. "It'll be nice to cheer for more than just half the team for once."
"You'd make a great cheerleader."
"Oh, I did." Kurt says, and catches his eye in a way that makes Blaine not quite sure if he's joking or not.
The football team, now comprised mostly of overawed freshmen and sophomores, buckle under the regime of Finn and the other glee guys. The legacy they're leaving this school is a football team that will never kick at the underdog, a football team informed that they are not only not going to bully the rest of the student body but they will actively protect those who need it, otherwise Puck will show them what he learned in juvie. The combination of fear and inspiration works pretty well.
That doesn't mean that things are great, of course. The graffiti in the McKinley bathrooms is equally as obscene as what Blaine couldn't get used to pre-Dalton, but it is less threatening, there's that to be grateful for. There's that certain confusion of fascination and revulsion that supposedly straight teenage boys do have with homosexuality; there's a list in one of the cubicles headed Whose had Hummel and it has a ridiculously long tally underneath it, wishful thinking or just hoping to hurt Kurt's feelings Blaine doesn't know, but Kurt's only response to it is to use a red pen to correct 'Who's'. Blaine knows that the speculation that Kurt's voice stays high through prolonged fellatio merely wearies him, but he also knows that Kurt seriously does not like the speculation about what Kurt does after school in the choir room with Mr Schuester. Blaine reports that graffiti. They've broken the unwritten rules, they've brought a teacher into it, they've taken it out of the realm of student against student. After that everything gets painted over, and stays clean for about six hours.
They don't quite know what to make of the little stick drawing of themselves - they can tell because the figures are labelled - fucking, above the urinals. They look at it heads tilted for some time, and Kurt says, "Why have they made you taller?"
"At least they spelled your name right."
Kurt takes out his red pen. He gives himself a hat, since the position allows him to keep one on his head, and Blaine corrects the spelling of his name and gives himself a luxurious handlebar moustache, and draws a little red love heart between their names. He passes the pen back to Kurt, who twirls it a bit in his fingers, nodding in a satisfied way.
*
The first and only time Blaine gets slushied, mostly it's just a shock. He's just walking down the corridor with Kurt trying to explain Zelda in a way that will make Kurt stop wearing that three-seconds-from-laughing face, when he just, just notices three of the hockey team looming -
And thankfully his eyes close instinctively and everything is astonishingly cold. He hears a wham and a noise so high he thinks it could only be Kurt, palms his eyes clear already lurching forward but a hand grabs his elbow - Kurt, glaring fury at the hockey player falling from his knees to curl up on his side, hands clamped between his legs. "Oh darn my knee, I must have slipped." he says in a vicious rush of words, his face white with fury. "What a horribly unfortunate place for my crutch to fall."
"Dude," one of the still standing hockey players croaks. "What if he can't have kids?"
"Then I'm sure the gene pool will write me a thank you card," Kurt growls, and tugs at Blaine's arm, voice softening. "Let's get you cleaned up."
Blaine coughs, licks his lips. "Cherry."
Kurt looks into the eyes of the two still standing and stupefied hockey players, leans over, and licks up Blaine's cheek. His tongue is warm, almost dry through the frozen wet. "Yes. I prefer the raspberry. Come on, bathroom."
As they walk away Blaine murmurs, "Could you get in trouble for that?"
"For what?" Kurt says briskly, head up, eyes forward. "He's going to report that he got floored by the crippled gay kid? I 'slipped'. Same excuse they can only try to get away with for what they did to you."
"It's all sticky."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault," Blaine says, and Kurt elbows the bathroom door open - Blaine really doesn't want to touch anything, he's already leaving slick-sticky footprints down the hall - and he waits for Blaine to get inside before crutching in after him.
"Because this happened all the time when you were at Dalton?"
"Well, not this exactly. There was a food fight once. You try getting salad dressing out of a blazer."
Kurt props his crutch off the wall, props himself off the crutch by the elbow, to give himself both hands free to draw Blaine's head into the sink. "I am sorry," he says quietly, turning the taps on, testing the temperature for a bit before manoeuvring Blaine's head under the warm water, skimming his fingers through his hair. "It shouldn't have happened. I -" He's silent for a moment, rinsing Blaine's hair through, then brushing it back out of his eyes and pulling some paper towels to dry him off a little. "I told you not to," he says quietly, and Blaine wrinkles his nose as Kurt wipes his face off, squeezes some water from his hair into a wad of paper towels.
"You don't actually get to make these decisions for me, Kurt."
"I think you're under some delusion about how our relationship works, Blaine. Do you have a change of clothes?"
"My gym stuff." He wriggles a shoulder. "It's run all the way down, it's disgusting. Why would you do that to another person? It's just disgusting."
"Come here," Kurt says gently, getting his fingers underneath the hem of Blaine's t-shirt and lifting it at the exact same moment that the bathroom door is opened by Mike, who steps in, stares at them - Kurt just raising Blaine's shirt, Blaine hair wild and blinking back at him - then raises his hands in an I was never even here, I don't even know who you people are gesture and backs himself out again. Kurt's mouth twitches as the door closes and he goes back to peeling Blaine's ruined t-shirt up, wet towels poised, murmuring, "Hello Blaine's abs."
"They say hi too." He grins down at Kurt, bending awkwardly around his stiff ribs to wipe the worst of the sticky off him. "And they've missed you."
"We really should spend more time together," Kurt says, dumping a spent wad of towels and picking up some more, wetting them in the sink before cleaning as best he can around Blaine's sides and back. "Maybe you should just go to the locker room and shower, I can bring you a shirt."
"I kind of. Like you doing it."
Kurt looks up at him, then hikes his weight upright again on the crutch, his smile a little evil. "Do you."
Blaine shrugs, trying not to smile. Kurt presses his lips together, then closes his eyes and leans in, whispers, "I bet you - taste of cherry all over." and kisses him. Blaine slides his hand around the back of his neck, slowly coming warm again against this kiss: they haven't, yet. The talk is so far speculative. Blaine won't even think about it until he's sure of Kurt's ribs and he can never tell if Kurt does think about it so it might be a while, and until his knee heals they can't screw like they do on the bathroom walls anyway. But right now just this is enough to make the hot angry shame fall off. Kissing Kurt makes everything better. God, when he and Kurt do have sex, Blaine is going to feel like a superhero. He's going to feel like Jesus, like a jet plane, like a Transformer Jesus-jet plane-Superman.
Kurt breaks the kiss, licks his lips, blinks at him like he hardly knows him. "You have ridiculous amounts of hair when the product washes out. You only fell in love with Gap guy out of narcissism, he has your hair."
"I don't have that much hair. I wasn't in love with him, anyway, I had a crush. He would never have cleaned cherry slushie off me in a school bathroom."
"Whereas I have had a lot of practise," Kurt says, smiling a little, twisting his fingers into the soggy base of Blaine's t-shirt, tugging at it again. "I'm glad it's finally turned out to be useful."
They end up making out until math class, which Blaine attends sticky and splattered in red food colouring, with probably the goofiest smile on the entire planet plastered all over his face.
*
They get through to Regionals, which Blaine sort of expected, the New Directions are really good when they can stop squabbling for long enough to work a routine out. They're coming up against Vocal Adrenaline and the Jane Addams Academy, and while the New Directions focus anxiously on the former, Blaine's mind is on the latter; Jane Addams knocked the Warblers out at Sectionals this year. Thad sent him an email about it afterwards but Blaine already knew the worst of it, because the girls had surrounded the Warblers in the parking lot and made vague but very sinister threats to a group of nervous private school boys missing their leader and inspiration, and someone had to call Blaine to get him to talk Trent out of crying so much before the performance. The Warblers are good without him, Blaine knows that, a wall of harmony, but you only need to make one of the pieces wobble and the whole harmony comes to pieces. So he's going to crush these girls if it's the last thing he does, and Kurt traces little circles on his arm with a fingertip and says, "You have a lot of rage, don't you?"
Kurt's ribs are pretty much healed by then, his fingers are untaped, the scar on the side of his forehead is a silvery curve vanishing under his hairline, it looks like a falling star caught him as it hit the ground. Blaine's been helping him with the exercises for the knee, but he goes back to the crutch from the cane for the evening because he just needs to feel sturdy. Blaine sits next to him on the bus ride, Mercedes and Tina hanging backwards from their seat in front to talk to them, before the bus stalls and makes a banging noise and Mr Schuester can only just get it off the highway before it putters to a sad little halt. The New Directions tumble out of the bus and gather around it like they can wish it back into life, and Rachel is halfway hysterical.
Kurt and Blaine stand a little way back and look at each other, then back at Finn propping the hood up, Puck leaning in - Kurt flinches a second before it happens - and coming back yelping, sticking his fingers in his mouth. "Freakin' hot, man-"
"Oh god," Kurt says, and puts his hand over his eyes.
Blaine rolls his sleeves up. "Can the people who actually know what they're doing take a look at it now?"
"Off, off, off." Kurt says, shooing the boys aside with his crutch. They lean into the engine and Kurt wrinkles his nose. "I cannot believe I got in this bus. It's a miracle it didn't kill us."
"Hey, say that a little more quietly in front of everyone before a nerve-wracking show choir competition?"
"This thing is a death trap. I'm suing that school." Kurt hovers his hand over part of the engine and then pulls back squirming, and pushes at Blaine's shoulder. "You do it. It's so icky."
Kurt gives directions and Blaine does his best to get the engine to live long enough to get them to the competition. When they're done Mr Schuester tries the ignition and it rumbles back into life and everyone cheers, hugs them, piles back on the bus while Kurt pours water from a bottle over Blaine's hands and Blaine rubs as hard as he can but the grease isn't going to come off until he gets to a proper bathroom, with proper soap and some kind of decontamination shower. "We make a great team," he says, and Kurt flicks him a little grin.
Back on the bus Kurt wraps Blaine's hands in tissues to protect his clothes and cuddles against his side, and Blaine puts an arm around him, sighs. They're going to win, tonight, because they have to. And then they're going to go on to Nationals and Blaine actually will fight for a solo there. Well, no; for a duet. Kurt shuffles himself down to rest his cheek on Blaine's shoulder, and if Blaine knows Kurt, he's fine. And he does know Kurt, Kurt is the other half of him, of course he knows him. Kurt knows him, after all.
Kurt murmurs, "I wonder why I'm not nervous."
Blaine kisses the top of his head. "Because we're going to win, because we are that awesome."
"You are," Kurt offers, and squirms his shoulder a little. "I'm going to have to put plastic bags over them, I'm sorry, I like this jacket."
Kurt's quite lucky Blaine does love him so much, actually.
In the parking lot as they climb down from the bus, there are the Jane Addams girls, hands on hips, heads wagging aggressively, one of them walking up finger raised and mouth opening. Kurt walks - crutches - right up to her, Blaine tries to grab for his arm but isn't quick enough (in retrospect a blessing, if he did get grease on Kurt's jacket he never would hear the end of it), and Kurt looks the girl up and down while she stops, glares in confused fury back at him. He looks back to her eyes and his nose wrinkles with contempt. "No, I really don't think so."
"Y'all think we won't bring the pain?"
Mercedes and Santana come up to Kurt's shoulders, arms folded, glaring back at her, but it's Kurt who says just quietly, "Little girl, I don't think you know the meaning of the word."
Out of the corner of his eye Blaine sees Rachel nervously reach for Finn's hand, but Mr Schuester is already wading in to break it up, Kurt head raised and eyes full of scorn on the girl in front of him, she furious and with no comeback to hand. Blaine hurries to his side, bumps his shoulder with his, and Kurt dismisses the pack of Jane Addams girls with a flick of his head. "Come on. Let's find you some soap."
"Are you okay?"
Kurt gives a little snort, starts crutching for the doors. "I'm fabulous. When am I ever not fabulous?"
"You are never not fabulous," Blaine says, smiling as he follows him. "You are always, always, amazing."
And Kurt glances back at him, the smile wicked and real, and if Kurt is the other half of him then Blaine is half that awesome too. He hurries his step to get to Kurt's side, and one day soon, when Blaine's hands aren't covered in crap and Kurt doesn't need the crutch, they'll hold hands that same old easy way, like they're complete when they connect. You work through these things. You live through them and make it to the other side, surer and steadier and stronger. You survive, because life is worth living for. This life is, definitely.
Slowing to take the steps up into the hall, Kurt murmurs, "If we win-"
"When we win," Blaine says, not touching him to help him up because his hands are gross and Kurt will scream. Kurt glances back at him, the smile all alight in his eyes.
"When we win." Very quietly. "There's something I want to - give you." The smile falls into something softer, questioning. "If you want it."
Blaine stops taking the steps to stare at him, and every member of the New Directions hurtles on past them, banging their shoulders and whooping with glee, they're going to kill this thing, while Kurt and Blaine are contained within a moment where suddenly the world is bigger and they're the only ones in it. Blaine stares at Kurt and Kurt, two steps ahead, looks back at him, open and unafraid, just curious and so fucking beautiful sometimes that Blaine's heart is bloody from how hard it hits the inside of his ribcage.
He takes the last two steps and kisses Kurt without touching him, curling his hands at his sides while Kurt leans down, eyes closed, kisses him calmly back.
Sam mutters as he walks past, "Guys, save it for when we win."
Kurt swallows, breathes, "Oh, we will." and at the top of the stairs Blaine carefully crooks his arm through Kurt's without rubbing engine grease off on him, and with his heart running like a rising spring tide, they walk inside.
Disclaimer: Ho my god so not mine.
Rating: R just for, you know, everything.
Warnings and spoilers: Well, spoilers for maybe everything, and warnings that while this is fairly chipper, you have to wade through a lot of angst to get here. If you've read the rest already this is a walk in the bloody park, though =P
Summary: If you've got to limp, do it in style.
Note: Why yes I *can* pull a happy ending out of my arse whatever else came before, why do you ask?
If anyone apart from Kurt knows how Kurt really is, it's Blaine. He'd worried for a long time that he didn't know, because before he had known everything about Kurt, they hid nothing from each other, they trusted each other with everything and anything, with their guarded heartfelt secrets and a half-second's flitted thought - but then Kurt lost a week, and lost another week after that, and just lost a lot, all at once. And Blaine found himself helpless, he couldn't give Kurt back the things that had been taken from him and Kurt didn't want to talk about it, and for this to be done to them - everything they both lost and then this wedge between them, that was too much. That wasn't fair. How could taking this from Kurt after he'd already lost so much ever be fair?
But if Blaine does know Kurt, and he believes whenever Kurt looks at him like that that he does, then he knows. He knows that Kurt's fine, really. He has wobbles, he falters, but he never fails to pick himself up again. Blaine's there in case he needs a hand but he rarely does. Alone in his room sometimes he'll clutch at Blaine and Blaine will know, and will tighten his arms around him, but usually he's fine. Same old always-new Kurt, shiny as a spring morning every day, and whatever else might happen Blaine does know that Kurt loves him. That he never falters in. Whatever crap they go through, Blaine never feels not loved. So he'll give anything he can, because what he gets back in return is just such an endless relief.
Walking away from Dalton was hard. Or rather, walking away from the Warblers was hard, Dalton he misses only rarely but them he misses painfully, understands the half-life Kurt led at Dalton now, his mind always elsewhere, nothing ever quite filling that hole. But he chose this. He made this decision, and Kurt never did, and that makes all the difference in the world. Blaine accepts that he misses his friends, and there's a really happy sadness about keeping in touch with them. All Kurt felt then was isolation and uncertainty, not really right at Dalton, unable to be right at McKinley, and who was really on his side if no-one had saved him from this?
He's fine though, Blaine's bright strong boy. Shrugs it off his shoulders and sticks diamonds on his crutch. If you've got to limp, do it in style. In Kurt's room they still dance, Kurt leaning on Blaine and the crutch, letting himself be led. Blaine knows it won't be long until he's taking the lead again, determined and delighted with it. He doesn't need to lean on Blaine. It's just nice, doing it for a while.
*
He doesn't really know what to make of Kurt's glee club. God they are loud, it's impossible to get a word in edgeways, he keeps looking at Mr Schuester thinking, Aren't you going to call any of this to order? but he just sits there digging the end of his pen into his chin and frowning at them all like he's maybe never seen teenagers before. Kurt touches his hand at the side of his seat and Blaine slips his fingers through his, and now he really understands why Kurt never seemed one of the Warblers, he was just performing with them for a bit - this is like trying to scream sense in a lunatic asylum: if you try, you just end up looking like another one of the inmates.
Plus Blaine hates Mr Schuester in a way that surprises him. He usually doesn't hate adults because he might disagree with them or expect more of them but in the end, he respects them. He doesn't respect Will Schuester. He thinks that he's a failure as an educator and a guardian. He knew what Kurt went through at this school and he didn't do a thing to stop it, and yes Kurt told him not to but Kurt was sixteen and sixteen year olds don't get a say in it, Jesus. So Blaine avoids eye contact with him as much as he can in case the man might see it, mostly focuses on Kurt in glee club, or on whoever's performing. They are all really good. Even the weaker singers are great performers, they just enjoy themselves so much, and Blaine can happily get lost in that.
He performs for Kurt, mostly. He loves making him smile like that. He's nervous of performing for them. He's nervous that they'll ask him to sing against the Warblers and Blaine can't; he does realise pretty early on that everyone is really just out for their own solo and they're not going to ask anyone they think might be better to take it from them, though.
Kurt leans across and murmurs to him, "If we come up against them, you're pretty easy to just hide in the back, you know." and gives him a Yeah I totally did just say that smile, and Blaine gives him the Why am I so ridiculously in love with you again? eyebrows.
*
The football team has been nearly emptied by the mass expulsions following what they did to Kurt. The only remaining members are the guys in glee club, and when they hold try outs Kurt and Blaine watch from the bleachers, Kurt with his bad knee stretched out, hands over it as if to warm it, frowning a little. "I used to be on the football team," he murmurs, watching some kid run to kick the ball and fall face flat.
Blaine looks across at him, eyebrows lowered, waiting for Kurt to qualify that with something that will make it make sense. He doesn't, though, so Blaine says, "Really?"
Kurt shrugs. "Kicker. I can't now, obviously." He indicates the knee. "Not that I would anyway. It's incredibly dull, I don't know what Finn sees in it."
"So," Blaine says, still trying to make this make sense, "at what point are you going to stop surprising the hell out of me actually all the time?"
Kurt says, "What makes you think I intend to stop?" and the grin flickers, wicked, before he looks back to the football field. "It'll be nice to cheer for more than just half the team for once."
"You'd make a great cheerleader."
"Oh, I did." Kurt says, and catches his eye in a way that makes Blaine not quite sure if he's joking or not.
The football team, now comprised mostly of overawed freshmen and sophomores, buckle under the regime of Finn and the other glee guys. The legacy they're leaving this school is a football team that will never kick at the underdog, a football team informed that they are not only not going to bully the rest of the student body but they will actively protect those who need it, otherwise Puck will show them what he learned in juvie. The combination of fear and inspiration works pretty well.
That doesn't mean that things are great, of course. The graffiti in the McKinley bathrooms is equally as obscene as what Blaine couldn't get used to pre-Dalton, but it is less threatening, there's that to be grateful for. There's that certain confusion of fascination and revulsion that supposedly straight teenage boys do have with homosexuality; there's a list in one of the cubicles headed Whose had Hummel and it has a ridiculously long tally underneath it, wishful thinking or just hoping to hurt Kurt's feelings Blaine doesn't know, but Kurt's only response to it is to use a red pen to correct 'Who's'. Blaine knows that the speculation that Kurt's voice stays high through prolonged fellatio merely wearies him, but he also knows that Kurt seriously does not like the speculation about what Kurt does after school in the choir room with Mr Schuester. Blaine reports that graffiti. They've broken the unwritten rules, they've brought a teacher into it, they've taken it out of the realm of student against student. After that everything gets painted over, and stays clean for about six hours.
They don't quite know what to make of the little stick drawing of themselves - they can tell because the figures are labelled - fucking, above the urinals. They look at it heads tilted for some time, and Kurt says, "Why have they made you taller?"
"At least they spelled your name right."
Kurt takes out his red pen. He gives himself a hat, since the position allows him to keep one on his head, and Blaine corrects the spelling of his name and gives himself a luxurious handlebar moustache, and draws a little red love heart between their names. He passes the pen back to Kurt, who twirls it a bit in his fingers, nodding in a satisfied way.
*
The first and only time Blaine gets slushied, mostly it's just a shock. He's just walking down the corridor with Kurt trying to explain Zelda in a way that will make Kurt stop wearing that three-seconds-from-laughing face, when he just, just notices three of the hockey team looming -
And thankfully his eyes close instinctively and everything is astonishingly cold. He hears a wham and a noise so high he thinks it could only be Kurt, palms his eyes clear already lurching forward but a hand grabs his elbow - Kurt, glaring fury at the hockey player falling from his knees to curl up on his side, hands clamped between his legs. "Oh darn my knee, I must have slipped." he says in a vicious rush of words, his face white with fury. "What a horribly unfortunate place for my crutch to fall."
"Dude," one of the still standing hockey players croaks. "What if he can't have kids?"
"Then I'm sure the gene pool will write me a thank you card," Kurt growls, and tugs at Blaine's arm, voice softening. "Let's get you cleaned up."
Blaine coughs, licks his lips. "Cherry."
Kurt looks into the eyes of the two still standing and stupefied hockey players, leans over, and licks up Blaine's cheek. His tongue is warm, almost dry through the frozen wet. "Yes. I prefer the raspberry. Come on, bathroom."
As they walk away Blaine murmurs, "Could you get in trouble for that?"
"For what?" Kurt says briskly, head up, eyes forward. "He's going to report that he got floored by the crippled gay kid? I 'slipped'. Same excuse they can only try to get away with for what they did to you."
"It's all sticky."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault," Blaine says, and Kurt elbows the bathroom door open - Blaine really doesn't want to touch anything, he's already leaving slick-sticky footprints down the hall - and he waits for Blaine to get inside before crutching in after him.
"Because this happened all the time when you were at Dalton?"
"Well, not this exactly. There was a food fight once. You try getting salad dressing out of a blazer."
Kurt props his crutch off the wall, props himself off the crutch by the elbow, to give himself both hands free to draw Blaine's head into the sink. "I am sorry," he says quietly, turning the taps on, testing the temperature for a bit before manoeuvring Blaine's head under the warm water, skimming his fingers through his hair. "It shouldn't have happened. I -" He's silent for a moment, rinsing Blaine's hair through, then brushing it back out of his eyes and pulling some paper towels to dry him off a little. "I told you not to," he says quietly, and Blaine wrinkles his nose as Kurt wipes his face off, squeezes some water from his hair into a wad of paper towels.
"You don't actually get to make these decisions for me, Kurt."
"I think you're under some delusion about how our relationship works, Blaine. Do you have a change of clothes?"
"My gym stuff." He wriggles a shoulder. "It's run all the way down, it's disgusting. Why would you do that to another person? It's just disgusting."
"Come here," Kurt says gently, getting his fingers underneath the hem of Blaine's t-shirt and lifting it at the exact same moment that the bathroom door is opened by Mike, who steps in, stares at them - Kurt just raising Blaine's shirt, Blaine hair wild and blinking back at him - then raises his hands in an I was never even here, I don't even know who you people are gesture and backs himself out again. Kurt's mouth twitches as the door closes and he goes back to peeling Blaine's ruined t-shirt up, wet towels poised, murmuring, "Hello Blaine's abs."
"They say hi too." He grins down at Kurt, bending awkwardly around his stiff ribs to wipe the worst of the sticky off him. "And they've missed you."
"We really should spend more time together," Kurt says, dumping a spent wad of towels and picking up some more, wetting them in the sink before cleaning as best he can around Blaine's sides and back. "Maybe you should just go to the locker room and shower, I can bring you a shirt."
"I kind of. Like you doing it."
Kurt looks up at him, then hikes his weight upright again on the crutch, his smile a little evil. "Do you."
Blaine shrugs, trying not to smile. Kurt presses his lips together, then closes his eyes and leans in, whispers, "I bet you - taste of cherry all over." and kisses him. Blaine slides his hand around the back of his neck, slowly coming warm again against this kiss: they haven't, yet. The talk is so far speculative. Blaine won't even think about it until he's sure of Kurt's ribs and he can never tell if Kurt does think about it so it might be a while, and until his knee heals they can't screw like they do on the bathroom walls anyway. But right now just this is enough to make the hot angry shame fall off. Kissing Kurt makes everything better. God, when he and Kurt do have sex, Blaine is going to feel like a superhero. He's going to feel like Jesus, like a jet plane, like a Transformer Jesus-jet plane-Superman.
Kurt breaks the kiss, licks his lips, blinks at him like he hardly knows him. "You have ridiculous amounts of hair when the product washes out. You only fell in love with Gap guy out of narcissism, he has your hair."
"I don't have that much hair. I wasn't in love with him, anyway, I had a crush. He would never have cleaned cherry slushie off me in a school bathroom."
"Whereas I have had a lot of practise," Kurt says, smiling a little, twisting his fingers into the soggy base of Blaine's t-shirt, tugging at it again. "I'm glad it's finally turned out to be useful."
They end up making out until math class, which Blaine attends sticky and splattered in red food colouring, with probably the goofiest smile on the entire planet plastered all over his face.
*
They get through to Regionals, which Blaine sort of expected, the New Directions are really good when they can stop squabbling for long enough to work a routine out. They're coming up against Vocal Adrenaline and the Jane Addams Academy, and while the New Directions focus anxiously on the former, Blaine's mind is on the latter; Jane Addams knocked the Warblers out at Sectionals this year. Thad sent him an email about it afterwards but Blaine already knew the worst of it, because the girls had surrounded the Warblers in the parking lot and made vague but very sinister threats to a group of nervous private school boys missing their leader and inspiration, and someone had to call Blaine to get him to talk Trent out of crying so much before the performance. The Warblers are good without him, Blaine knows that, a wall of harmony, but you only need to make one of the pieces wobble and the whole harmony comes to pieces. So he's going to crush these girls if it's the last thing he does, and Kurt traces little circles on his arm with a fingertip and says, "You have a lot of rage, don't you?"
Kurt's ribs are pretty much healed by then, his fingers are untaped, the scar on the side of his forehead is a silvery curve vanishing under his hairline, it looks like a falling star caught him as it hit the ground. Blaine's been helping him with the exercises for the knee, but he goes back to the crutch from the cane for the evening because he just needs to feel sturdy. Blaine sits next to him on the bus ride, Mercedes and Tina hanging backwards from their seat in front to talk to them, before the bus stalls and makes a banging noise and Mr Schuester can only just get it off the highway before it putters to a sad little halt. The New Directions tumble out of the bus and gather around it like they can wish it back into life, and Rachel is halfway hysterical.
Kurt and Blaine stand a little way back and look at each other, then back at Finn propping the hood up, Puck leaning in - Kurt flinches a second before it happens - and coming back yelping, sticking his fingers in his mouth. "Freakin' hot, man-"
"Oh god," Kurt says, and puts his hand over his eyes.
Blaine rolls his sleeves up. "Can the people who actually know what they're doing take a look at it now?"
"Off, off, off." Kurt says, shooing the boys aside with his crutch. They lean into the engine and Kurt wrinkles his nose. "I cannot believe I got in this bus. It's a miracle it didn't kill us."
"Hey, say that a little more quietly in front of everyone before a nerve-wracking show choir competition?"
"This thing is a death trap. I'm suing that school." Kurt hovers his hand over part of the engine and then pulls back squirming, and pushes at Blaine's shoulder. "You do it. It's so icky."
Kurt gives directions and Blaine does his best to get the engine to live long enough to get them to the competition. When they're done Mr Schuester tries the ignition and it rumbles back into life and everyone cheers, hugs them, piles back on the bus while Kurt pours water from a bottle over Blaine's hands and Blaine rubs as hard as he can but the grease isn't going to come off until he gets to a proper bathroom, with proper soap and some kind of decontamination shower. "We make a great team," he says, and Kurt flicks him a little grin.
Back on the bus Kurt wraps Blaine's hands in tissues to protect his clothes and cuddles against his side, and Blaine puts an arm around him, sighs. They're going to win, tonight, because they have to. And then they're going to go on to Nationals and Blaine actually will fight for a solo there. Well, no; for a duet. Kurt shuffles himself down to rest his cheek on Blaine's shoulder, and if Blaine knows Kurt, he's fine. And he does know Kurt, Kurt is the other half of him, of course he knows him. Kurt knows him, after all.
Kurt murmurs, "I wonder why I'm not nervous."
Blaine kisses the top of his head. "Because we're going to win, because we are that awesome."
"You are," Kurt offers, and squirms his shoulder a little. "I'm going to have to put plastic bags over them, I'm sorry, I like this jacket."
Kurt's quite lucky Blaine does love him so much, actually.
In the parking lot as they climb down from the bus, there are the Jane Addams girls, hands on hips, heads wagging aggressively, one of them walking up finger raised and mouth opening. Kurt walks - crutches - right up to her, Blaine tries to grab for his arm but isn't quick enough (in retrospect a blessing, if he did get grease on Kurt's jacket he never would hear the end of it), and Kurt looks the girl up and down while she stops, glares in confused fury back at him. He looks back to her eyes and his nose wrinkles with contempt. "No, I really don't think so."
"Y'all think we won't bring the pain?"
Mercedes and Santana come up to Kurt's shoulders, arms folded, glaring back at her, but it's Kurt who says just quietly, "Little girl, I don't think you know the meaning of the word."
Out of the corner of his eye Blaine sees Rachel nervously reach for Finn's hand, but Mr Schuester is already wading in to break it up, Kurt head raised and eyes full of scorn on the girl in front of him, she furious and with no comeback to hand. Blaine hurries to his side, bumps his shoulder with his, and Kurt dismisses the pack of Jane Addams girls with a flick of his head. "Come on. Let's find you some soap."
"Are you okay?"
Kurt gives a little snort, starts crutching for the doors. "I'm fabulous. When am I ever not fabulous?"
"You are never not fabulous," Blaine says, smiling as he follows him. "You are always, always, amazing."
And Kurt glances back at him, the smile wicked and real, and if Kurt is the other half of him then Blaine is half that awesome too. He hurries his step to get to Kurt's side, and one day soon, when Blaine's hands aren't covered in crap and Kurt doesn't need the crutch, they'll hold hands that same old easy way, like they're complete when they connect. You work through these things. You live through them and make it to the other side, surer and steadier and stronger. You survive, because life is worth living for. This life is, definitely.
Slowing to take the steps up into the hall, Kurt murmurs, "If we win-"
"When we win," Blaine says, not touching him to help him up because his hands are gross and Kurt will scream. Kurt glances back at him, the smile all alight in his eyes.
"When we win." Very quietly. "There's something I want to - give you." The smile falls into something softer, questioning. "If you want it."
Blaine stops taking the steps to stare at him, and every member of the New Directions hurtles on past them, banging their shoulders and whooping with glee, they're going to kill this thing, while Kurt and Blaine are contained within a moment where suddenly the world is bigger and they're the only ones in it. Blaine stares at Kurt and Kurt, two steps ahead, looks back at him, open and unafraid, just curious and so fucking beautiful sometimes that Blaine's heart is bloody from how hard it hits the inside of his ribcage.
He takes the last two steps and kisses Kurt without touching him, curling his hands at his sides while Kurt leans down, eyes closed, kisses him calmly back.
Sam mutters as he walks past, "Guys, save it for when we win."
Kurt swallows, breathes, "Oh, we will." and at the top of the stairs Blaine carefully crooks his arm through Kurt's without rubbing engine grease off on him, and with his heart running like a rising spring tide, they walk inside.