Glee!fic: Unscripted (Three Times . . .)
Unscripted, or, Three Times Kurt and Blaine Almost Break Up, and One Time They Stop Trying. I really like the shape of those 'five times . . .' fics, but my brain is fixated on the number three. Read too many fairy tales as a kid, psychologically scarred for life. *shrugs*
Disclaimer: Owned by others. All the below is pure non-canon speculation.
Warnings and spoilers: Potentially spoilers for everything as it's set long after New York, but we veer pretty far from canon anyway. Warnings? It's 20,000 words. Make the cup of tea beforehand?
Rating: Vaguely R
Summary: 1. They're kids, and it's the first serious decision they've ever had to make, and they're not making it well. 2. In college they have crazy roommates and maybe it's not second thoughts, for all Kurt knows Blaine's having eighteenth thoughts. 3. Maybe Kurt's a better actor than Blaine ever knew. 4. Why fight the inevitable?
Rainjoy: Hey boys, how about some drama?
Kurt and Blaine: No, thanks, really, we're good.
R: . . . but then I have no plot.
Kurt: So not our problem.
Blaine: Write nice things?
R: Schyeah.
Tell you what, my other couple? One is emotionally frigid and the other is emotionally incontinent, they have all the drama in the fucking *world*. These two you have to go at with a crowbar to get it out of 'em. If they weren't so pretty I really would get annoyed, I really truly would. Sigh.
1. Seventeen
High school's nearly over, now. It's like the end of the road comes out at a cliff edge, because all of the excitement and expectation doesn't warn you that you'll end up suddenly out in the open without any of your safe known surroundings and stunned by the size of the world. Everyone's stressed about it. Finn's planning on going to a local college and Rachel's being really dramatic about going off to New York, she wants them to have long serious conversations about the sacrifices a long distance relationship will entail. Finn decides to be brave, to take a deep breath, to expect nothing, to take it as it comes; this could break, very easily, distance could snap the thread between them like rotted elastic. All they can do is try.
He's happy enough staying in Ohio. He thinks Burt and his mom like the idea of having a son at home too, because the other son in the house is off like a swallow at the end of summer, Kurt and Blaine are fleeing to New York on wings of sheer excitement. Sheer excitement, at least, at first.
It's not that big a house, and Kurt's voice is pretty distinctive through a wall even when not raised with emotion. Finn walks past Kurt's doorway and the bed and floor are covered in college prospectuses and Kurt and Blaine are sitting in the midst of their papery snowdrift, talking. But the talking turns into firmer talking. And the firmer voices become louder voices - that's the scary part, when Blaine's voice raises too, because Kurt's often pretty loud but it takes quite a lot to rile Blaine out of mellow. It is scary when they fight, and there's no denying after a couple of weeks that they are fighting, this is not impassioned discussion, this is just arguing. In Finn's room Rachel lays with her head on his chest and he strokes her hair, and they listen to the muffled sound of their snarling in the next room and Rachel whispers, "It's like hearing your parents fight."
"It's like hearing your parents fight."
She snorts, shakes her head. He knows what she means. There's always been a certain serenity about Kurt and Blaine's relationship, a steadiness, they just don't have the fights and fallings-out that all the other couples they know have; Finn and Rachel have broken up and seen other people and got back together and broken up while Kurt and Blaine just make their sure little world of two, always happy together. Finn doesn't think it's just because they're sort of each other's only option in Lima. He's spent more time with them together than any of their friends have, he's seen how they are together. What they are together is really not normally like this.
Three weeks of it and getting a drink in the kitchen Finn sees them at the foot of the back yard, eye to eye and voices low but this is clearly the worst argument yet and they've gone out there so no-one else can hear it. Finn knows what they're fighting about because Kurt's bitched it at him stalking up and down in his room while Finn sits on his bed and tries to be a good brother and mostly thinks about being hungry: they don't know whether to go to the same college in New York (and how to choose?) and even if they do, do they want to live together? Kurt does, and he can't believe that Blaine wouldn't but Blaine's unsure of putting too much weight on their relationship too suddenly. Kurt doesn't want them to grow apart in some strange city, Blaine doesn't want them to depend only on each other in a new and exciting world, and one of them is going to have to break in this . . .
At the foot of the garden Kurt slashes his hand angrily and Blaine throws his arms up, turns away; Kurt snaps something across at him and Blaine turns back and Finn hears the edge of his voice in a yell and Kurt pulls his head back, arms folded, for a second the shock is so obvious on his face - but then his face closes and his mouth twitches with contempt as he makes some short reply. It's Blaine's turn to stop, looking dumb, and then they're both talking, shouting, at once and Kurt's standing straight-backed and tight-held and Blaine's stepping into him to yell right into his face and Finn puts his glass down, needs to get out there and break them up, he knows Kurt and knows that this won't be a physical fight, this will just be Kurt getting knocked down -
But Blaine whirls away, walks fast and furious in a straight line for the back door. Kurt watches him go without moving, arms wrapped around himself, eyes wide and dumb on his back, his mouth just opening as Blaine slams into the kitchen and says roughly, "Bye, Finn." and vanishes off through the house; the front door bangs.
Finn hears the car engine start as Kurt puts a hand over his mouth, suddenly very alone in the back yard.
*
That night at dinnertime the door to Kurt's bedroom is still closed. Finn stands awkwardly on the stairs while Burt knocks at it again, says, "Kurt, you gonna come down and get something to eat?"
Silence.
Burt rubs the back of his neck, knocks harder. "Have you got your headphones in? You listening at all? Kurt, say something, okay? I do not want to have to take this door off its hinges but I will if I think you've done something stupid-"
Finn's phone goes off in his pocket, and he glances down at a text.
"You gotta say something, Kurt, don't worry your old man, okay, just throw something at the door if-"
The text's from Kurt. Please tell Dad I'm not hungry. "Um," he says, while Burt's still banging open-handed on the door. "Kurt says he's not hungry."
Burt looks around at him, looks at the phone in his hand, throws his eyes to the ceiling and pulls his cap off, scratches hard at his head. He bangs the door one last time. "Okay. You take your time. Come down if you want to talk later. I'll be here, Kurt."
He turns for the stairs, looking defeated. Finn shuffles out of the way so he can pass, looks at the closed door, doesn't know what he can reply. He squirms his shoulders, follows Burt downstairs.
Kurt doesn't come down for dinner. Doesn't come out when his dad goes to talk quietly at the door before bed. Doesn't come out for breakfast - it's Saturday and Burt's going to the garage but he just looks pained at that closed bedroom door before he does - and just before lunch Finn sits with his back to Kurt's bedroom door and says, "Kurt, you still in there or did you climb out the window and run off to New York already?"
Silence. He didn't really expect anything different.
He says, "You want me to bring you some food up? I get if you just want some alone time but you're sort of skinny enough already, you know?"
Silence. Finn begins to worry.
"Kurt?" He taps the door with his knuckles a bit. "Um. Could you just make some noise? Please? It's a bit. Scary."
Silence. Finn begins to really worry. He turns, bangs the door with the flat of a fist for a bit, then stops and texts, Dude tell me u didnt hang urself in there or sumthin.
"Kurt? Kurt, are you okay? Did you pass out from lack of food or something? Just-"
His phone goes off.
Please leave me alone.
He stares at it for some time, then stands up, swallows. "Okay," he says, quietly, because he doesn't know what else he can do. This isn't something he can fix.
*
That evening Burt does take the door off its hinges, and jiggles it about until it pops out of the lock. He takes a sandwich in and props the door back in its frame, and Finn's mom quietly murmurs Finn down to the lounge. They don't need to be there for whatever this might be.
Burt comes downstairs an hour and a half later with the plate and about ninety percent of the sandwich, all its crusts nibbled off as if by a mouse. He dumps the plate in the kitchen and Finn sits in the lounge staring through the TV and trying not to hear, as Carole goes through to rub his back, "I never know what to - I don't know what I'm supposed to say to him, it's the hardest thing, never understanding your own kid."
His mom's voice comes hushed. "Of course you understand him. He's just hurting, give him time. He's a seventeen year old boy, they eat, he'll come down when he has to."
Sunday morning Finn wakes up at five because he has to pee, and Kurt's door - set back on its hinges by a weary and indulgent Burt - is open. He stares at it for a bit, dumb with drowsiness, then tiptoes over to peek in. The blinds are open and the room is empty, the bed's a wreck, and all the college prospectuses are crumpled in the trash can.
He creeps downstairs, not quite sure what he's going to find. Kurt's sitting in the lounge, and Finn knows he isn't really watching the TV because there's a documentary about fishing on. He's sitting with his arms tight around himself, face very bleak, eyes very bloodshot, not looking at Finn. It takes a while for Finn to work out what the weirdest part of it is; he's wearing exactly what he was wearing when he had that argument with Blaine in the back yard. Finn's never seen Kurt finish a day in the same outfit he started it in, and he's been in those clothes now for almost two solid days.
He doesn't know what to do. He has the same problem as Burt, they can't understand Kurt, the things they think will help only infuriate him and the things he might actually need they don't know how to give, Finn and Burt have quite simple emotional lives while Kurt's is rather strange and intense and delicate, and Finn always seems to be bruising it without trying to.
He puts a hand over a yawn, says, "You want a soda?"
Kurt wipes his cheek off and his chest shudders. Finn says, "Uh, I'll, I'll get you one anyway."
He's pulling two Cokes from the fridge when something in the salad drawer buzzes and Finn drop-juggle-drop-catches one can, heart beating out of his ears. He stares, opens the drawer and there's Kurt's phone, showing a text from Santana - best not to ask what Santana's doing up at five on a Sunday morning - thirty missed calls, forty unread texts. He switches cans so it doesn't explode when he opens it, picks up a diet Coke for Kurt, and closes the salad crisper a bit uncertainly, knocking the door closed behind himself.
He puts Kurt's can on the arm of the sofa at his side, sits next to him. "What're you watching?"
Kurt opens his mouth, hesitates like he's unsure of how to talk anymore, says low and husky, "I have no idea."
"You mind if I . . . ?"
Kurt shrugs. Finn picks up the remote, flicks about a bit. He tries a music channel but Kurt's cheek gives this twitch and Finn realises that if Kurt's staying away from music then it's probably for a reason. He puts sports news on so that Kurt's probably more likely to listen to him anyway.
"So," he says, popping his can open. "Why's your phone in the fridge?"
Kurt closes his eyes. "Because every time." He swallows. "It goes off, and it's not. Him. I want to kill myself."
". . . don't."
"No," Kurt says softly, and his mouth twitches.
Finn says, "You okay, man?" and then realises that that's a really stupid question, because Kurt looks like hell. But Kurt just looks at him, dully scornful, too tired to manage much real emotion. Finn takes a gulp of icy Coke, his mom's not up to tell him it's unhealthy at this time in a morning. "You gonna drink that?"
Kurt looks across at it, still for a moment, then says, "I really should care more about condensation on the couch fabric."
"Uh. Sorry."
Kurt picks the can up, flicks his damp fingers off, plays with the ring pull a bit. "Thank you," he says very quietly, and snaps it open.
"So," Finn says, and licks his lips. "If it's this seriously shitty, shouldn't you just, like, call him?"
Kurt swallows a mouthful of soda with his eyes closed, his entire face crumpling like it tastes nothing but bitter. "No," he says, and swallows again. "No. No, I can't. Finn, you didn't hear some of the things I said."
Finn knows firsthand that Kurt can be cruel when he's angry, and Kurt knows Blaine better than anyone does, so yeah, he can imagine that it got pretty bad. ". . . so say you're sorry."
Kurt wipes his eyes off on the side of a hand, gulps on his next breath, says thickly, "You didn't hear some of the things he said." He huddles over his can, shakes his head. "I can't. I can't, I can't, just - if I did and he didn't - it already all hurts too much and-"
"Okay, man, don't -"
He squeezes awkwardly at Kurt's shoulder and Kurt chokes on a laugh, puts his can on the coffee table, wipes his eyes off on the backs of his wrists and fumbles for tissues. "I only left my room - because I ran out of -" He waves a tissue, smiles damply, dries his face off. "God my head hurts. God, I cried until I thought I might just die of dehydration and save myself from having to deal with this."
"Dude, seriously, just text him, he can't hang up on a text."
Kurt props his forehead on a wrist, rumpled tissue still hanging from his hand. He shakes his head against his arm, closes his eyes. "I was only ever brave because I had him."
Finn doesn't really understand that, doesn't understand any of this. He watches Kurt's face for a bit, not knowing what to say, then turns the sound up a little, takes another pull of Coke. Kurt blinks, wipes his eyes again, huddles back on the sofa, stares through the TV with him. Just being there is a hell of a lot easier than talking, and maybe it's all Kurt wants anyway.
*
Kurt sits at the dinner table with them that night because his dad wants him to, Finn's under no illusions. Carole's made hotdogs and Finn can see the drain of colour on Kurt's face; he tears bits of bread off the bun, eats tiny mouthfuls, can't even seem to bring himself to look at the sausage itself. When Carole gets up to fill the water jug and Burt's talking to her, Finn quickly leans over and stabs it out of the bun on Kurt's plate, drops it in his own. Kurt flicks him an at first stunned and then grateful look, and eats every bit of bread that hasn't actually touched the meat.
Later Finn goes through the cupboards for the blandest food he can find, eventually locating a pack of rice crackers Burt's really meant to have for snacks. He takes them upstairs with another can of soda because Kurt never shuts up about the calories in those things, knocks on Kurt's bedroom door and for once it's unlocked.
Kurt's sitting on his bed, apparently not actually doing anything. He looks at Finn's presents with a small sigh. "When I get stressed - my stomach -"
"Gotta eat something."
"I am unlikely to die of malnutrition in the space of two days."
"Gotta get back into the habit of eating."
He rolls his shoulders and his eyes, breaks a rice cracker apart and eats bits of it unenthusiastically. He loses interest after one, and sits there rubbing one arm awkwardly.
"I keep thinking. What he'll be . . . I don't know." He swallows. "Probably the entire student body of Dalton already hates me." He closes his eyes like he feels sick. "I probably deserve it."
"Dude, call him."
"He won't pick up."
"You don't know that. Text him. Email him for god's sake, this is - dumb, and you're not dumb, Kurt, I know dumb 'cause usually that's what I do and you don't-"
"I thought," Kurt says, huddling his arms closer like he's cold. At least he's changed, into one of his dad's old shirts and a pair of jeans he normally saves for gardening. "I thought about it a lot. But. You didn't hear some of the things I said. Because I know exactly, exactly how to hurt him but I never thought I would and - and even if he would read anything I sent him -" His breath sucks in. "Why should he? I don't - he doesn't need me near him if all I'm going to do is hurt him like this-"
"No, man, it was a fight, he said some stuff too-"
"He didn't say anything that wasn't true."
"Did you?"
Kurt looks at the wall and works his jaw, eyes low and dark.
"I bet," Finn says slowly, "what he's doing is pretty much exactly what you're doing. Just - not wanting to say anything when you both want to hear something -"
"Finn I would-" His jaw goes tight for a second, his eyes look wrong. "Really appreciate it if you would go now."
". . . all I wanna do is help, man."
Kurt says, very low, "Please, please, please, please go."
Finn can't believe, just can't understand Kurt and Blaine screwing this up, they've been as solid and certain as if their names got written next to each other in some big celestial book pairing people off and are they really going to let it all go to hell because of one big fight and a few vicious words-?
"Please," Kurt whispers, hanging his head but Finn already knows he's crying again. "Please, please, please . . ."
He stands up, swallows, squeezes his hands and lets them loose and walks out. He closes the door gently behind himself. He leaves the crackers and the soda. If he's lucky Kurt might notice that.
*
Monday morning. Kurt normally gets up about two hours earlier than Finn for school, he has a lot more getting ready to do. Finn comes slumping downstairs about ten minutes before he needs to be out of the door and finds Kurt in the back yard, tearing a bagel up and tossing bits of it for the birds. His dad must have made him breakfast before he left.
Finn looks at him warily, because Kurt looks like he hasn't slept in three days and hasn't eaten in three days and his hair's a little wild and his eyes are almost purple. "You okay for school?"
Kurt whispers, shredding the last bits of bagel in twitching fingers, "One more day in there and I will hang myself."
"Don't - joke about that."
"Don't be stupid." Kurt says to the yard. "I don't get a choice. I have to look after my dad."
Finn rubs a hand over his face, says, "I'll see you in the car, okay?" because Kurt might not want breakfast but it is actually all Finn can think about right now. He toasts two bagels and he's got one hanging out of his mouth as he opens the front door and nearly falls backwards because there's someone already standing there.
It's Blaine, hand raised to knock, staring dumbly at him. He lowers his hand, lets his breath out, and Finn stares back at him and can't say anything because of the bagel in his mouth. He almost looks just like Blaine, but his eyes look exhausted, and there's an odd ill tinge to his skin, and while he's wearing his Dalton uniform - the shirt isn't buttoned in quite the right holes.
He says, "Is he-?"
Finn steps to the side, jerks his head, takes a bite from the bagel and catches it in his hand as Blaine stumbles in over the step. "Back yard," he calls after him, so Blaine skids and changes direction at the stairs in a fraction of a second, tripping into the kitchen.
From the back door, Finn hears a yelp.
He leans against the wall for a bit, eating his bagel, counting. He gives them a good long minute.
Back through the hall, back into the kitchen, and he looks out of the back door. They're a tight-clutched embrace in the middle of the grass, arms dug in hard around each other, turning slowly like their legs are unsteady; they stumble to a halt with Kurt's back to the door, shoulders shaking, and Finn feels uncomfortable at the sight of Blaine's face, eyes closed hard over Kurt's shoulder. They make him feel uncomfortable a lot, not for any reason they might think; they make him realise that love, for him, has never been so intense, so maybe so far it's never really been love. He sort of always knew he'd one day look back on his high school girlfriends and sigh at himself, but he didn't think he'd be seventeen and watching his stepbrother crying into his boyfriend's shoulder when he did it. He wipes the crumbs from his fingers, and takes Kurt's phone from the fridge as he goes. He figures Kurt might need it again now.
*
He guesses that Kurt has a pretty stressful Monday morning ahead because Mercedes and Tina are waiting for him in the parking lot, they throw themselves at him furious and worried because he didn't pick his phone up once and he puts his head up, rolls his eyes, sweeps off with them saying he had a fight with Blaine like it doesn't even matter anymore. They make little noises of surprised sympathy and stop yelling, because Kurt never fights with Blaine. But there's the entire rest of glee club to harass him over missed calls and ignored texts, and Finn knows Kurt probably just doesn't need reminding what his weekend was.
Just before lunch Finn gets called out of Spanish class - he sees the surprise and concern on Mr Schuester's face as well - because 'his brother fainted in gym class'. In the nurse's office Kurt's sitting on one of the beds mostly looking flustered, taking a can of soda from the nurse and frowning. "I asked for diet."
"You get diet when you actually eat something." she says, and walks off through the curtain again, leaving them alone. Finn puts his hands in his pockets, shifts his weight on his heels, and Kurt gives her back a narrow-eyed look of your time will come before he sighs, pops the can open.
"Blood sugar, or, something." he says, shrugs and takes a sip.
"Are you okay?"
"Coach Beiste was making us run laps. I hate gym class."
"You seriously fainted?"
"So they tell me." Kurt says irritably. He presses the can to his cheek, closes his eyes and his shoulders slump. "I know there is no way I'm going to escape Dad finding out about this but would you please not tell Blaine? I will actually genuinely never hear the end of it."
"Dude, you didn't eat in like two days."
"I was stressed. My stomach - I can't, I never can when I'm stressed."
"Hey, then, don't stress yourself out." Kurt opens his eyes to glare at him, but Finn's pissed now, pissed for watching Kurt slice himself to pieces all weekend for no reason worth anything. "All either of you had to do was call each other and you both have to make each other miserable over-"
"In the future I'll be sure to always ask your advice since you're the guru of functional relationships, Finn." Kurt snaps back, but then stops, presses his lips together. He whispers, "Sorry."
Finn looks at the ceiling, shakes his head, swallows. "Just, whatever. Just, I don't care whatever fight you're having, you two would never want to - to do this to each other."
Kurt looks at the floor, doesn't say anything. Finn jigs his foot a bit in frustration, gives a jagged shrug. "Drink your damn soda. I'm standing over you while you eat lunch."
"You're going to tell him."
"Like you ever listen to me."
". . . I do, actually." Kurt swallows. "You notice a lot of things I don't."
Finn's silent for a bit, while Kurt drinks some soda and winces. "Tastes horrible. There's a reason I wanted diet."
"You need to look after yourself better. You stressed your dad out too."
Kurt closes his eyes, nods miserably. Finn's half terrified that he's going to start crying again, but he draws his breath in, says, very quietly, "I know. I'm sorry."
Finn rubs his nose, doesn't know what to say to that. ". . . hey. Promise me something?"
Kurt looks up, bleary and tired, now. Finn manages a grin. "Never actually break up with him, okay? Because I cannot even imagine picking you up after that."
Kurt's mouth twitches, and he shakes his head a little, and the smile breaks free like a flag getting loose in the wind, sudden and bright. "No. No. I won't."
Finn bops his shoulder awkwardly. Kurt rocks with it, gives him a raised eyebrow and an amused pout, and turns the can about in his fingers. "No." he says, quiet and sure. "I won't."
Nineteen
New York is and is not what they expected.
They do end up going to the same college, but they decide not to room together at least at first; relationships are all about compromise. They're both far more grateful to have each other there than they knew they would be, certainly more than Blaine knew he would be - Kurt knows that Blaine likes to act confident but suddenly in the middle of a huge alien city, Blaine's the one who reaches for his hand when they walk. Kurt never denies him it. There are a handful of complexities, sure, but they still work primarily as a unit, supporting and sympathising with each other, and occasionally bitching each other out about whatever bullshit they're pulling. They know each other too well, except for the times when they don't know each other quite enough.
Kurt's roommate turns out to be an asshole within five minutes. Kurt can tell he's uncomfortable with Blaine helping him unload his stuff, but Kurt kisses Blaine goodbye in the doorway for his first night alone away from home, and still the roommate is being a shuffly asshole over at his laptop. Feeling mean, Kurt digs out the comfortable old Likes boys t-shirt to sleep in. He is not in Lima anymore and he does not have to take this shit.
For almost the whole first semester Kurt's at guerrilla war with the boy he shares his bedroom with, leaving LGBTsoc pamphlets lying about and ignoring his glares, and Kurt starts sleeping less in case the roommate gets up in the night to smother him in his sleep. At breakfast in the campus cafeteria Blaine rubs his hair - he's wearing it looser now he's out of the Dalton uniform, he seems to be piecing together who he actually is now he doesn't have a blazer to hide behind - and says, "I think my roommate is on drugs."
Kurt unpeels a banana. "What makes you say that?"
Blaine waves half a bagel about, frowning. "Last night he asked me why there were spiders. At first I thought he was having some crazy hallucination but then it turned out he was asking the question more philosophically. Like, why are there spiders? And it was midnight and I have biology first thing and I just, I did not want to deal with it. I don't know why there are spiders. Just to freak me out I think sometimes."
Kurt pats his hand, eats his banana. "My roommate is an asshole."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"Come over tonight and make out with me on my bed."
"Because you want to make out with me or because you want to freak him out?"
"Both. I like you in that shirt."
"Okay." Blaine bites into his bagel, grins. "I thought about you when I bought it. I think about you whenever I buy clothes."
"Mm, I thought your taste was improving."
Blaine laughs. Kurt just smiles, happy as if all the world is golden, because he's in New York and he has a gender studies class to go to and Blaine is the best thing ever.
Two weeks from the end of the first semester, Kurt applies for a room switch, it's just getting absurd, he can't work with the asshole muttering in the corner, can't sleep if he keeps staying out late to avoid coming back to a room with Kurt in it. One night he jolts Kurt out of sleep banging the door and Kurt sits up, the lamp's still on and half an essay falls off his bed, and as the boy stares at him Kurt draws his breath in through his nose and says, "While I promise you I'm flattered I actually do love my boyfriend and you're not really my type, honestly, I'm sorry if it hurts your feelings but I don't give a crap about you. Except when you wake me up in the middle of the damn night like a hippo coming up to a watering hole."
He mutters something, goes into the bathroom to change. Kurt pulls the pillow over his head, fumes, picks up the paperwork first thing in the morning. Under Reason for application he writes 'My roommate is a homophobic asshole'. It's reason enough.
He gets a text from Blaine during a philosophy seminar, calls him as soon as he's out. "My roommate is definitely on drugs," Blaine says, sounding only perplexed. "And he's gone. His stuff was gone last night and I found a note in the bathroom saying he's dropped out and moved into a squat in the city to 'raise his consciousness' and inviting me to join him. Do you think I need my consciousness raising?"
"Only with regards to some of the contents of your iPod. I applied for a room switch, if my roommate doesn't kill me I'm going to kill him."
"Huh. Bad day for roommates."
"So . . ." Kurt leans against the wall of the building, holding his books to himself with an arm. "I don't have a room. You don't have a roommate."
"Yes, it does sort of look like the universe is telling us something, doesn't it?"
Kurt moves his stuff out that night, Blaine and some of the guys from Blaine's building help. They put Kurt's boxes in Blaine's room, have a party, push the beds together, don't look back. They wake up in the morning with beer cans everywhere, tangled in with each other on their two-bed bed, and Kurt smiles and Blaine nuzzles back into the crook of his neck and nothing will ever, Kurt thinks, be better than this.
*
Blaine's building contains a surprisingly high concentration of gay; students do seem to be oddly distributed, so all the incense-burning Buddhist vegetarians live together in the block opposite them and their own building contains six guys Kurt knows of who are gay or bi, including him and Blaine, not even counting the girls. It also contains four guys called Dave and another Kurt, who's three times Kurt's size and on a football scholarship. He's referred to as 'Football Kurt' to save people from confusion. Kurt's referred to as 'Kurt and Blaine'.
"So Kurt said-"
"Which Kurt?"
"Kurt and Blaine, he said-"
Blaine draws graphs plotting the weirdly uneven distribution of the student body until Kurt makes him stop.
They're pretty compatible roommates, which makes Kurt glow with hope and relief. Kurt sets up a laundry system because Blaine is a bit hopeless, has never had to care for himself in this way before, is simply bemused by domestic matters Kurt's been arranging since he was big enough to reach the dials on the machine. They both have a lot more time now they don't have to find the time to see each other anymore. Studying together they already know is actually helpful, because they complement each other's strengths and weaknesses so well; Blaine helps Kurt with the horrible horrible complexities of working out study samples and plotting graphs for psych, and Kurt reads Blaine's essays through and highlights sections of No, how does your brain work, not even crazy people think like that.
Also there's the fact that now they can have more sex than they ever even knew they wanted. It's almost silly, but Blaine is just there all the time and they know that they can keep their hands off each other but - Kurt feels like he needs a parade, he needs tickertape for this announcement - they don't have to anymore. They go at it until they're sore but they still don't stop. Life is great.
Life is complicated. Life does things you don't expect it to.
The immediate problem is Glen but maybe it's been a problem for Blaine for longer, forever, Kurt doesn't know, doesn't want to ask. He hates Glen, anyway. Glen's first ever interaction with Kurt at a party in Blond Dave's room was to grab his ass and ask his name, in that order. Kurt has issues with aggressive come ons. Blaine got between them not because his boyfriend just got groped but because Kurt was shrieking at him to never touch him and maybe it was the vodka or maybe it was just that -
Kurt has issues with aggressive come ons.
It's his fault Blaine ever even becomes friends with Glen, he feels like he ought to after Kurt screams the guy out like that. Glen keeps his hands to himself and smirks a lot instead and Kurt hates him and hates him and hates him. Hates him for how casually he checks over guys' bodies, like every body is just a body, like there's not a person living in it. Hates him for checking Blaine over, fuck you, don't even look at him, he's the best thing Kurt has and he's not for sharing. Hates him for checking him over. God it makes his skin ripple with revulsion, being looked at like that. Sex means sex with Blaine. Otherwise his body is something to hang clothes on and dance with, and should be of no real interest to any other human being on the planet.
They come back after Christmas and settle immediately back into the same easy rhythms, they audition for the same play, Kurt tutors other students in French for the money. But somehow they have less time for each other despite sharing a room. The homework piles up, and Kurt needs to study in the library more because Blaine is distracting in any number of ways. When he gets back on a night Blaine's not always there; he texts and he's at a bar with Glen and some guys. Kurt doesn't want to go out, wants to curl up in bed with his boyfriend and get his hands warmed up, but it lumps in his throat the way Glen looks at Blaine sometimes so he puts his scarf back on and heads out anyway. And yes, he's ratty. He's not much fun. Blaine keeps giving him the puzzled, annoyed eyebrows and talks to everyone else instead. Kurt's tired and not where he wants to be and ratty. Bisexual Dave talks to him though, which does at least make Blaine take his hand under the table. Everyone knows that Bisexual Dave's in love with Kurt.
Actually everyone does know that, even Kurt who objects strongly to aggressive come ons but is fairly oblivious to every other sort, Blaine has to point out to him the guy who just stared at his ass for five minutes and the fact that a waiter was flirting with him. But it would be obvious to an alien that Bisexual Dave is in love with Kurt, and Kurt likes him, feels fond and sorry about it all, pushes his glass sulkily about on the table and holds Blaine's hand but not his attention, and listens to Bisexual Dave mumble about Morrissey. Kurt's exhausted when they leave, and he has a French lesson to take in the morning. Blaine touches him in bed and he rolls away. It's the first time either of them has ever turned down sex.
He gets back in that night and Blaine's not there again. He's too tired to care, tired enough to cry, goes to bed instead. He wakes up when Blaine trips onto him in the dark, shoves him off and snaps, "Where were you?"
"Out. It's Saturday night. I texted, you didn't reply."
"I could've been dead down an alleyway for all you knew."
Blaine rubs his fingers into his eyes. "Don't do this. There was tequila."
Kurt snorts, jerks the sheets over himself again, lays rigid with his back to Blaine as he pulls his clothes off and climbs in. He can feel Blaine thinking about initiating sex but then he sighs in the dark instead, tumbles his limbs limp in his gracelessly graceful way, and Kurt lays there with his throat full and hurting wishing he could just touch him and everything would be the way it always should be, while Blaine sleeps the tequila off.
*
It's a Thursday night when he's sitting at the desk, head propped on the heel of his hand, struggling over a psychology assignment without Blaine there to help. Around nine o' clock the door opens and Blaine walks in, looking drained and unsteady. Kurt sits up, blinks.
"Are you okay?" And then, "Are you drunk?"
Blaine rubs his forehead. "There . . . Glen wanted to talk."
Kurt feels his heart pick up, beating like the frightened fast heart of a rabbit, the fear contained only by the stone-hard fury tightening his ribs. "He wanted to talk. With alcohol. How nice. How lovely."
"Don't do this, okay, don't, I want to talk." Blaine sits on the end of the bed and Kurt turns the chair to him and the pen drops out of his fingers.
"You want to 'talk'."
"Not - like that, don't look like that, Kurt, don't, I love you, okay? I do."
Don't say it like that. Don't say it like it's one issue amongst many; it's the only issue. He says, and it scalds his tongue and the roof of his mouth as it comes out, "I love you too."
Blaine rubs his forehead, shrugs tightly. "We're a bit of a mess right now."
"We're not anything right now," Kurt says, and swallows. "I hardly ever see you. We're working or else you're out getting drunk with cretins."
"They're not - okay, they are cretins. But college is hard, and it's fun, you know?"
"You wouldn't find it hard if you weren't hungover all the damn time. For the most intelligent guy I know you are really stupid sometimes."
"And you are always on my case, you're not my mom, Kurt."
"I'm sure both of us are glad of that seeing as your mother hates me, Blaine."
"Just, can you just not drag everything else into it when I'm trying to talk to you about this? You need to chill. Jesus. If you could just relax sometimes-"
"How can I relax?" He wants to scream it at him, it comes out sharp and high and punctured somehow like his lungs just broke. "I have work, I have tutoring sessions to plan, I come home and you're never here and I sound like a whiny fifties wife but Blaine I need you around and you're always off- somewhere, I don't even know half the time anymore, don't you - don't you even want to spend time with me?"
"Of course I do, I just-" Blaine rubs his forehead, sucks his breath in, sits up with his back straight. Kurt can't bear the look on his face, his determination to say something difficult when Kurt knows, with the cold knowledge that dread is, what is coming. "Please just listen, I'm seriously trying to think about this, please take it seriously. Do you think we made too much out of this? Living together and depending so much on each other, do you think -?"
"No," Kurt whispers, and feels faint. "No, I don't. I think we're screwing it up but I think it is right. We are right. We're just - not right now, but we can be, we are -"
"Okay. Okay, listen, please." Blaine reaches over, takes Kurt's numb hands, squeezes them, looks up into his face. "I love you, Kurt, I know that, I know I do. But."
"Don't say 'but'. Not after that, don't ever say 'but'-"
"But I just - do you think it's right? We could - make our entire lives each other but - we've both never even - we've never even really kissed other people before-"
Kurt's voice comes out low. "'Before'."
Blaine watches his face. Kurt sees the tension of guilt in his eyes, feels it sick inside, what has already happened. Blaine says, stating it carefully, "Glen kissed me."
Kurt turns his head a little, eyes on the wall, working his way through how he possibly can respond to it. He closes his eyes for a second, opens them, says very, very quietly, "Did you kiss him back?"
". . . eventually. Kurt-"
He pulls his hands back, stumbles out of the chair, bangs his back into the wall of the room with his arms wrapped around himself. "Of course you did. Of course you-"
"I just - I am trying to work some stuff out, okay, can you just give me the time to-"
"To what? What are you asking me for? To let you go fuck someone else and wait for you to get bored and come back to me? To keep the bed warm and let you 'experiment' again-"
"I am just trying to work some stuff out, Kurt!"
"Work out what, whether you love me enough to not fuck other guys too? What the hell does love even mean from you?"
Blaine knocks the chair over shoving himself into Kurt's face. "It means nearly four years we've been together without ever questioning it and all I need is for you to shut up for five minutes to let me think!"
Kurt stares at him, breathing tight and quick, while Blaine's dark eyes glitter his glare up at him, his hands in fists at his sides. Kurt swallows, and can't compress himself any closer to the wall, and his muscles are so tense he's trembling a little but he doesn't lower his head. "Well what now?" he says, very dry and very quiet, no breath to say it any louder, his lips feel weak. "How simple are you going to make it, Blaine?"
Blaine - understands, in one shocked second, what he means. He backs off immediately, giving Kurt the room to properly shiver, because Blaine has always had to keep his temper in check but never, never against Kurt. Blaine folds his arms, rubs them a bit, looks just stunned. "I just need - to -" He sounds so lost. "I just need some space to think."
Kurt turns his shoulder into the wall, huddles there trying so hard to stop the shaking. "Go ask Glen for advice. He has all the best ideas."
Blaine says, "You know what? Just - screw you, right now." He wrenches the door open. "I need to clear my head."
Kurt puts his forehead to the wall so Blaine won't see him cry. He probably doesn't look back before slamming the door anyway.
Student accommodation does not have the thickest walls. Kurt's mostly managed to stop crying when there's a knock at the door, soft and uncertain, and he sniffs, drops his tissue in the trash, opens the door not expecting Blaine because Blaine wouldn't knock like that even if he would knock at his own door. It's Bisexual Dave, wearing his battered black trench coat even indoors, a six pack of beer under his arm. "Um. I - heard. I wondered if you wanted . . . cheering up."
Kurt rolls his eyes to the ceiling - everyone in the building probably heard, and Bisexual Dave lives immediately above them - and opens the door a little wider. "I definitely need cheering up," he says, and walks back in to drop on the bed. He doesn't know what he's meant to do. He feels like some essential tether has been cut and his weight's tipped all wrong, he's coming loose, he doesn't know what to expect or how to act. If Blaine goes back to Glen -
If Blaine has sex with Glen.
Kurt puts his hand over his mouth, swallows, takes a can from Dave and whispers, "Thank you."
Everything about Dave is awkward. He's ridiculously long-limbed and bony and permanently apologetic about how much space he takes up, and he speaks like he's uncertain of every word out of his mouth. "You okay?"
"No." Kurt grins weakly, turns it off again quickly. "No. I don't know - what's happening."
Dave sits there for a moment, stiff as a clothes prop, then unfolds an arm, puts it around Kurt's shoulder, squeezes a careful five second hug and lets go again. Kurt could almost laugh, wipes his eyes off again and croaks, "Thank you."
Dave shrugs a little. Kurt snaps his can open. If Blaine can get drunk to solve all his problems, so can Kurt.
After an hour of speed-drinking and letting Dave play really weird music on Spotify Kurt doesn't exactly feel better, he just feels sort of numbed. Sometimes he lets the edge of his mind touch on if Blaine and the nausea swings up like something physically shoves him, he sucks his breath in, chugs more beer. He tries to get Dave to talk about Cara, the vague-eyed girl in chipped black nail polish he's dating. Dave mumbles.
There are only two cans left when Dave puts the Magnetic Fields on and Kurt makes a little noise out loud because they hurt too much right now. Dave sits next to him on the bed again, rubs his legs in their black jeans awkwardly. Kurt wipes an eye off on the inside of his wrist, mumbles, "I don't know when it got bad, I don't know what-"
He looks up, at the way Dave's looking down at him. He stops, and presses his lips together because he feels them open without his intending it.
Dave leans down in little hesitant stages, so it's not like Kurt doesn't have the time to make him stop. All he does is quiver a little, and close his eyes. Dave's mouth is somehow cooler than Blaine's, wider, somehow there's sharper definition to his lips, it's just all different. His breath comes out against Kurt's cheek and Kurt feels the press of his tongue, lets it in just because taking any action at all is a bit beyond him right now.
Dave's hand catches at the back of his neck. Kurt starts to respond, there's a hunger in the way Dave kisses him that he hasn't felt in a while, he hasn't felt wanted in a while, and he touches, catches his fingers in the frayed neck of Dave's black t-shirt -
And realises that he's crying. He ducks his head, gasps his breath out, puts his hands over his wet face. "Sorry," he whispers and it chokes. "Sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't -"
Dave swallows, peels back off him like a tree unfolding, stands up. "Sorry. Sorry, I shouldn't- I was only going to - you were sad, and-"
Kurt shakes his head behind his hands, feels himself coming to pieces. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please-"
"I should go."
"Sorry," Kurt whispers, curling himself up closer on the bed. "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm sorry, I just-"
"I shouldn't, I'm sorry, I'll-"
They apologise to each other all the way until the door's closed behind Dave and Kurt can curl up on the bed again and sob just out of self-pity this time, because he can't hate Blaine for doing what he apparently does too now.
Blaine. His body aches for him, it's a physical pain of want, just Blaine, only Blaine and his Blaine-smell and his Blaine-warmth, but Blaine wants other people and Kurt isn't worth him now -
The door opens, a careful click, a slow swing. He sits, sniffs and puts a hand over his nose because he doesn't have a tissue, and Blaine stares back wearing probably the same shocked expression Kurt's wearing. "I -" Blaine says, and closes the door behind himself, looks stricken. "Please tell me you haven't just been crying since I left."
Kurt swallows, reaches for a tissue to hide behind. "No. Not always." He waves a hand at the beer cans beside the bed. "Dave came over."
"Which Dave?"
"Bisexual Dave. To cheer me . . . up."
There's silence for a moment, before Blaine says, shoulders hunched, his voice hopeful of making Kurt smile, "Looks like he did a really good job of it."
Kurt wipes his face off, draws his breath in, looks up at Blaine. "Where were you?"
Blaine looks away, opens his mouth, closes it and looks angry. "I did go to talk to Glen."
Kurt swallows, draws his head up and all his strength in tight. "And?"
"And Glen's an asshole." Blaine looks back at him, his face tight, Kurt knows when he's stressed. "Which I did - know. I did, anyway, and now I have confirmation. So I took a walk. I cooled my head. I've been trying to think how to say this to you honestly."
The tears come again and Kurt feels miserable with it, that this is how it happens, Blaine is honest and then what's Kurt supposed to do with the rest of his life? But Blaine says, "No, no, no." and sits next to him on the bed, puts his arm around him. Kurt's too pathetic to pull away, to shove him off, to say fuck you first. He just lets Blaine stuff Kurt's head into his shoulder (oh god the Blaine-smell and Blaine-warmth) and cries.
"I think," Blaine says, pulling him closer with his arm around him, shaking him a little with each word. "That you and I feel like we should be the rest of each other's lives. But - Kurt, we're still just kids. What kind of relationships last from sixteen until - well, without an 'until'? I just - this is great, us, this is perfect and I - I worry about when it'll break. Because - because these things break."
"No," Kurt chokes into his jacket. "Not if we don't let it."
Blaine squeezes his shoulder. "I keep steering between thinking that we'll be together forever so it doesn't matter if I go out and hang out with other people and do stupid things because of course we'll be fine - and looking for the thing that's going to split us up just because something has to, no-one gets an easy shot at this, why do we think we're so different, who actually finds the love of their life at sixteen?"
"Me." Kurt snarls, going down with a fight now he's going.
"I know." Blaine lowers his head, his breath closer to Kurt's ear now. "I know." He strokes the back of Kurt's neck. "Me too."
Kurt just leans against him for some time, breathing hard against Blaine's hot-running body, he can feel how quick Blaine's own breath is coming with stress. "I'm tired and a bit drunk," he confesses. "Are you dumping me?"
"No." He loves how that 'no' comes out, the helpless breath behind it, how hopeless and how gentle Blaine sounds. "No. God. Not if you're not dumping me."
"No," Kurt says, and hangs onto his shirt, and then remembers. "Bisexual Dave kissed me."
"What?"
"Just before you came back. He was trying to cheer me up by playing the most miserable music in the world and feeding me beer. Then, he kissed me."
". . . did you kiss him back?"
Kurt says, too exhausted to feel amused, "Eventually."
Blaine's silent for a moment, but he doesn't let go, just strokes Kurt's side. "Do we count it as even and forget it?"
"I don't care about any of it if you still love me."
"Kurt," his hand runs over Kurt's cheek, lifts his face. "I always love you."
He kisses him and Kurt's hand closes in his hair; Blaine taste, Blaine warmth, Blaine smell. Oh.
Their sex is more intense than it usually is, Blaine's eyes never leave his face, checking his every hitching breath, Kurt's hands possessive on him. The orgasm is a juddering overpowering thing getting in through his groin and belly and all the way through his body and opening him somehow while Blaine makes little keening noises and jolts, jolts, jolts his hips like he can't help it. Afterwards he slumps over Kurt, heart beating hard into his ribs while Kurt runs his fingers back through his hair, down the back of his neck, over his smooth flexing shoulders. For some time they just lie tangled and heavy and sticky together, before peeling apart a little, rocking and shuffling until they're side by side, Kurt's arm over Blaine's waist and Blaine holding it there by the elbow, brushing some hair back from Kurt's forehead, watching his face. He looks sleepy, tired, still warm-skinned with sex. Kurt pretty much could stare at him forever, major in Blaine Anderson and forget the rest of the world.
Blaine's fingers run over his cheek. He says drowsily, "When you cry all the blue comes out with it."
Kurt blinks still-damp eyelashes. "What?"
"Nothing. It's nothing." He holds Kurt's cheek, raises his head to kiss his forehead. "This is what I want. I'm just - I'm good at wrecking the things I really want for myself."
"I'm trying to work out," Kurt says, because he doesn't know if it doesn't make sense because Kurt's so tired and drunk or just because it's Blaine so of course it doesn't, "how you can be scared of us breaking up and scared of us not breaking up at the same time."
"Mostly I'm just - always scared, really."
"Don't be." Kurt puts a hand on Blaine's cheek and kisses the other one. "Don't. Don't I take good care of you?"
"You do." He catches Kurt's wrist, closes his fingers around it, kisses him again. "You do, you always do, I don't . . . know how my brain works sometimes."
"No-one knows how your brain works sometimes."
"I think I'm trying to have my irresponsible youth. I never got one, I figure I have to eventually."
Kurt runs his fingers through his hair. "Can we say that you had it now?"
"Yes. I think I'm done. I actually like my classes, I want to do well."
"Good."
"So, how about we arrange an irresponsible youth for you? You work really hard, I think you need one."
"I have to work hard. It's - it takes a lot, Blaine, for my parents, me and Finn at college at the same time, so I can't just screw around, I have to make something of this. And I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything." He runs his finger around Blaine's cheek, watches his eyes, lips parting a little in a smile. "You make me feel wild. So I don't feel like it's all work and no play, you know . . . ?"
"You should schedule in some time for dancing." Blaine runs his fingers up and down Kurt's arm. "Just you and me if you like. Can I book your Friday nights . . . ?"
Kurt bites his lip around the grin. "My dance card? All you. And you know it."
Blaine smiles, but there's something faint about it and he lets it die quickly, his eyes flicking between Kurt's. "Did . . . you didn't think that I was going to - to hurt you. Earlier. When we were shouting. You didn't think that, did you? Because I wouldn't, I would never, I would never-"
"I know. I know." Kurt strokes his hair a little, like calming a child. "I know you wouldn't. I just - then - I didn't feel like I knew you, then."
"You're the only person who knows me."
Kurt watches his face, licks his lips, nuzzles in close again. "I don't care about any of it. I don't. I don't give a shit. As long as you're here -"
"I don't know how to do anything right without you anymore."
"-then that's fine. Everything will be fine."
They are a tired boozy mess, both of them. Blaine huddles, and Kurt holds him, gets his cheek comfortable propped half on the pillow and half on Blaine's head. In the moment, no, he hadn't known if Blaine would shove him, hit him, he just didn't know. What he has realised since was that it wouldn't change a thing. He knows it's meant to. He knows that you leave someone the first time they do that because of what it says about them, that they can do that to someone who loves them. But it's Blaine. He could never mean it. He would be so so sorry if he did, and he wouldn't, because he's the most idiotically innocent person Kurt's ever met and -
Blaine mumbles into his throat, like it's some feverish obsession, "I wouldn't. I wouldn't."
Kurt kisses the top of his head and believes him. "I know. I know you wouldn't. I know you better than anybody."
Blaine's sigh pools over his breastbone. Kurt runs his fingers through his hair, down his back, hums just softly. No, he wouldn't. If there is ever anything approaching a next time, he'll remember this, and he won't.
"I might," he says, and Blaine's body gives a little shivering snigger before he slips into sleep.
On to part 2
Disclaimer: Owned by others. All the below is pure non-canon speculation.
Warnings and spoilers: Potentially spoilers for everything as it's set long after New York, but we veer pretty far from canon anyway. Warnings? It's 20,000 words. Make the cup of tea beforehand?
Rating: Vaguely R
Summary: 1. They're kids, and it's the first serious decision they've ever had to make, and they're not making it well. 2. In college they have crazy roommates and maybe it's not second thoughts, for all Kurt knows Blaine's having eighteenth thoughts. 3. Maybe Kurt's a better actor than Blaine ever knew. 4. Why fight the inevitable?
Rainjoy: Hey boys, how about some drama?
Kurt and Blaine: No, thanks, really, we're good.
R: . . . but then I have no plot.
Kurt: So not our problem.
Blaine: Write nice things?
R: Schyeah.
Tell you what, my other couple? One is emotionally frigid and the other is emotionally incontinent, they have all the drama in the fucking *world*. These two you have to go at with a crowbar to get it out of 'em. If they weren't so pretty I really would get annoyed, I really truly would. Sigh.
1. Seventeen
High school's nearly over, now. It's like the end of the road comes out at a cliff edge, because all of the excitement and expectation doesn't warn you that you'll end up suddenly out in the open without any of your safe known surroundings and stunned by the size of the world. Everyone's stressed about it. Finn's planning on going to a local college and Rachel's being really dramatic about going off to New York, she wants them to have long serious conversations about the sacrifices a long distance relationship will entail. Finn decides to be brave, to take a deep breath, to expect nothing, to take it as it comes; this could break, very easily, distance could snap the thread between them like rotted elastic. All they can do is try.
He's happy enough staying in Ohio. He thinks Burt and his mom like the idea of having a son at home too, because the other son in the house is off like a swallow at the end of summer, Kurt and Blaine are fleeing to New York on wings of sheer excitement. Sheer excitement, at least, at first.
It's not that big a house, and Kurt's voice is pretty distinctive through a wall even when not raised with emotion. Finn walks past Kurt's doorway and the bed and floor are covered in college prospectuses and Kurt and Blaine are sitting in the midst of their papery snowdrift, talking. But the talking turns into firmer talking. And the firmer voices become louder voices - that's the scary part, when Blaine's voice raises too, because Kurt's often pretty loud but it takes quite a lot to rile Blaine out of mellow. It is scary when they fight, and there's no denying after a couple of weeks that they are fighting, this is not impassioned discussion, this is just arguing. In Finn's room Rachel lays with her head on his chest and he strokes her hair, and they listen to the muffled sound of their snarling in the next room and Rachel whispers, "It's like hearing your parents fight."
"It's like hearing your parents fight."
She snorts, shakes her head. He knows what she means. There's always been a certain serenity about Kurt and Blaine's relationship, a steadiness, they just don't have the fights and fallings-out that all the other couples they know have; Finn and Rachel have broken up and seen other people and got back together and broken up while Kurt and Blaine just make their sure little world of two, always happy together. Finn doesn't think it's just because they're sort of each other's only option in Lima. He's spent more time with them together than any of their friends have, he's seen how they are together. What they are together is really not normally like this.
Three weeks of it and getting a drink in the kitchen Finn sees them at the foot of the back yard, eye to eye and voices low but this is clearly the worst argument yet and they've gone out there so no-one else can hear it. Finn knows what they're fighting about because Kurt's bitched it at him stalking up and down in his room while Finn sits on his bed and tries to be a good brother and mostly thinks about being hungry: they don't know whether to go to the same college in New York (and how to choose?) and even if they do, do they want to live together? Kurt does, and he can't believe that Blaine wouldn't but Blaine's unsure of putting too much weight on their relationship too suddenly. Kurt doesn't want them to grow apart in some strange city, Blaine doesn't want them to depend only on each other in a new and exciting world, and one of them is going to have to break in this . . .
At the foot of the garden Kurt slashes his hand angrily and Blaine throws his arms up, turns away; Kurt snaps something across at him and Blaine turns back and Finn hears the edge of his voice in a yell and Kurt pulls his head back, arms folded, for a second the shock is so obvious on his face - but then his face closes and his mouth twitches with contempt as he makes some short reply. It's Blaine's turn to stop, looking dumb, and then they're both talking, shouting, at once and Kurt's standing straight-backed and tight-held and Blaine's stepping into him to yell right into his face and Finn puts his glass down, needs to get out there and break them up, he knows Kurt and knows that this won't be a physical fight, this will just be Kurt getting knocked down -
But Blaine whirls away, walks fast and furious in a straight line for the back door. Kurt watches him go without moving, arms wrapped around himself, eyes wide and dumb on his back, his mouth just opening as Blaine slams into the kitchen and says roughly, "Bye, Finn." and vanishes off through the house; the front door bangs.
Finn hears the car engine start as Kurt puts a hand over his mouth, suddenly very alone in the back yard.
*
That night at dinnertime the door to Kurt's bedroom is still closed. Finn stands awkwardly on the stairs while Burt knocks at it again, says, "Kurt, you gonna come down and get something to eat?"
Silence.
Burt rubs the back of his neck, knocks harder. "Have you got your headphones in? You listening at all? Kurt, say something, okay? I do not want to have to take this door off its hinges but I will if I think you've done something stupid-"
Finn's phone goes off in his pocket, and he glances down at a text.
"You gotta say something, Kurt, don't worry your old man, okay, just throw something at the door if-"
The text's from Kurt. Please tell Dad I'm not hungry. "Um," he says, while Burt's still banging open-handed on the door. "Kurt says he's not hungry."
Burt looks around at him, looks at the phone in his hand, throws his eyes to the ceiling and pulls his cap off, scratches hard at his head. He bangs the door one last time. "Okay. You take your time. Come down if you want to talk later. I'll be here, Kurt."
He turns for the stairs, looking defeated. Finn shuffles out of the way so he can pass, looks at the closed door, doesn't know what he can reply. He squirms his shoulders, follows Burt downstairs.
Kurt doesn't come down for dinner. Doesn't come out when his dad goes to talk quietly at the door before bed. Doesn't come out for breakfast - it's Saturday and Burt's going to the garage but he just looks pained at that closed bedroom door before he does - and just before lunch Finn sits with his back to Kurt's bedroom door and says, "Kurt, you still in there or did you climb out the window and run off to New York already?"
Silence. He didn't really expect anything different.
He says, "You want me to bring you some food up? I get if you just want some alone time but you're sort of skinny enough already, you know?"
Silence. Finn begins to worry.
"Kurt?" He taps the door with his knuckles a bit. "Um. Could you just make some noise? Please? It's a bit. Scary."
Silence. Finn begins to really worry. He turns, bangs the door with the flat of a fist for a bit, then stops and texts, Dude tell me u didnt hang urself in there or sumthin.
"Kurt? Kurt, are you okay? Did you pass out from lack of food or something? Just-"
His phone goes off.
Please leave me alone.
He stares at it for some time, then stands up, swallows. "Okay," he says, quietly, because he doesn't know what else he can do. This isn't something he can fix.
*
That evening Burt does take the door off its hinges, and jiggles it about until it pops out of the lock. He takes a sandwich in and props the door back in its frame, and Finn's mom quietly murmurs Finn down to the lounge. They don't need to be there for whatever this might be.
Burt comes downstairs an hour and a half later with the plate and about ninety percent of the sandwich, all its crusts nibbled off as if by a mouse. He dumps the plate in the kitchen and Finn sits in the lounge staring through the TV and trying not to hear, as Carole goes through to rub his back, "I never know what to - I don't know what I'm supposed to say to him, it's the hardest thing, never understanding your own kid."
His mom's voice comes hushed. "Of course you understand him. He's just hurting, give him time. He's a seventeen year old boy, they eat, he'll come down when he has to."
Sunday morning Finn wakes up at five because he has to pee, and Kurt's door - set back on its hinges by a weary and indulgent Burt - is open. He stares at it for a bit, dumb with drowsiness, then tiptoes over to peek in. The blinds are open and the room is empty, the bed's a wreck, and all the college prospectuses are crumpled in the trash can.
He creeps downstairs, not quite sure what he's going to find. Kurt's sitting in the lounge, and Finn knows he isn't really watching the TV because there's a documentary about fishing on. He's sitting with his arms tight around himself, face very bleak, eyes very bloodshot, not looking at Finn. It takes a while for Finn to work out what the weirdest part of it is; he's wearing exactly what he was wearing when he had that argument with Blaine in the back yard. Finn's never seen Kurt finish a day in the same outfit he started it in, and he's been in those clothes now for almost two solid days.
He doesn't know what to do. He has the same problem as Burt, they can't understand Kurt, the things they think will help only infuriate him and the things he might actually need they don't know how to give, Finn and Burt have quite simple emotional lives while Kurt's is rather strange and intense and delicate, and Finn always seems to be bruising it without trying to.
He puts a hand over a yawn, says, "You want a soda?"
Kurt wipes his cheek off and his chest shudders. Finn says, "Uh, I'll, I'll get you one anyway."
He's pulling two Cokes from the fridge when something in the salad drawer buzzes and Finn drop-juggle-drop-catches one can, heart beating out of his ears. He stares, opens the drawer and there's Kurt's phone, showing a text from Santana - best not to ask what Santana's doing up at five on a Sunday morning - thirty missed calls, forty unread texts. He switches cans so it doesn't explode when he opens it, picks up a diet Coke for Kurt, and closes the salad crisper a bit uncertainly, knocking the door closed behind himself.
He puts Kurt's can on the arm of the sofa at his side, sits next to him. "What're you watching?"
Kurt opens his mouth, hesitates like he's unsure of how to talk anymore, says low and husky, "I have no idea."
"You mind if I . . . ?"
Kurt shrugs. Finn picks up the remote, flicks about a bit. He tries a music channel but Kurt's cheek gives this twitch and Finn realises that if Kurt's staying away from music then it's probably for a reason. He puts sports news on so that Kurt's probably more likely to listen to him anyway.
"So," he says, popping his can open. "Why's your phone in the fridge?"
Kurt closes his eyes. "Because every time." He swallows. "It goes off, and it's not. Him. I want to kill myself."
". . . don't."
"No," Kurt says softly, and his mouth twitches.
Finn says, "You okay, man?" and then realises that that's a really stupid question, because Kurt looks like hell. But Kurt just looks at him, dully scornful, too tired to manage much real emotion. Finn takes a gulp of icy Coke, his mom's not up to tell him it's unhealthy at this time in a morning. "You gonna drink that?"
Kurt looks across at it, still for a moment, then says, "I really should care more about condensation on the couch fabric."
"Uh. Sorry."
Kurt picks the can up, flicks his damp fingers off, plays with the ring pull a bit. "Thank you," he says very quietly, and snaps it open.
"So," Finn says, and licks his lips. "If it's this seriously shitty, shouldn't you just, like, call him?"
Kurt swallows a mouthful of soda with his eyes closed, his entire face crumpling like it tastes nothing but bitter. "No," he says, and swallows again. "No. No, I can't. Finn, you didn't hear some of the things I said."
Finn knows firsthand that Kurt can be cruel when he's angry, and Kurt knows Blaine better than anyone does, so yeah, he can imagine that it got pretty bad. ". . . so say you're sorry."
Kurt wipes his eyes off on the side of a hand, gulps on his next breath, says thickly, "You didn't hear some of the things he said." He huddles over his can, shakes his head. "I can't. I can't, I can't, just - if I did and he didn't - it already all hurts too much and-"
"Okay, man, don't -"
He squeezes awkwardly at Kurt's shoulder and Kurt chokes on a laugh, puts his can on the coffee table, wipes his eyes off on the backs of his wrists and fumbles for tissues. "I only left my room - because I ran out of -" He waves a tissue, smiles damply, dries his face off. "God my head hurts. God, I cried until I thought I might just die of dehydration and save myself from having to deal with this."
"Dude, seriously, just text him, he can't hang up on a text."
Kurt props his forehead on a wrist, rumpled tissue still hanging from his hand. He shakes his head against his arm, closes his eyes. "I was only ever brave because I had him."
Finn doesn't really understand that, doesn't understand any of this. He watches Kurt's face for a bit, not knowing what to say, then turns the sound up a little, takes another pull of Coke. Kurt blinks, wipes his eyes again, huddles back on the sofa, stares through the TV with him. Just being there is a hell of a lot easier than talking, and maybe it's all Kurt wants anyway.
*
Kurt sits at the dinner table with them that night because his dad wants him to, Finn's under no illusions. Carole's made hotdogs and Finn can see the drain of colour on Kurt's face; he tears bits of bread off the bun, eats tiny mouthfuls, can't even seem to bring himself to look at the sausage itself. When Carole gets up to fill the water jug and Burt's talking to her, Finn quickly leans over and stabs it out of the bun on Kurt's plate, drops it in his own. Kurt flicks him an at first stunned and then grateful look, and eats every bit of bread that hasn't actually touched the meat.
Later Finn goes through the cupboards for the blandest food he can find, eventually locating a pack of rice crackers Burt's really meant to have for snacks. He takes them upstairs with another can of soda because Kurt never shuts up about the calories in those things, knocks on Kurt's bedroom door and for once it's unlocked.
Kurt's sitting on his bed, apparently not actually doing anything. He looks at Finn's presents with a small sigh. "When I get stressed - my stomach -"
"Gotta eat something."
"I am unlikely to die of malnutrition in the space of two days."
"Gotta get back into the habit of eating."
He rolls his shoulders and his eyes, breaks a rice cracker apart and eats bits of it unenthusiastically. He loses interest after one, and sits there rubbing one arm awkwardly.
"I keep thinking. What he'll be . . . I don't know." He swallows. "Probably the entire student body of Dalton already hates me." He closes his eyes like he feels sick. "I probably deserve it."
"Dude, call him."
"He won't pick up."
"You don't know that. Text him. Email him for god's sake, this is - dumb, and you're not dumb, Kurt, I know dumb 'cause usually that's what I do and you don't-"
"I thought," Kurt says, huddling his arms closer like he's cold. At least he's changed, into one of his dad's old shirts and a pair of jeans he normally saves for gardening. "I thought about it a lot. But. You didn't hear some of the things I said. Because I know exactly, exactly how to hurt him but I never thought I would and - and even if he would read anything I sent him -" His breath sucks in. "Why should he? I don't - he doesn't need me near him if all I'm going to do is hurt him like this-"
"No, man, it was a fight, he said some stuff too-"
"He didn't say anything that wasn't true."
"Did you?"
Kurt looks at the wall and works his jaw, eyes low and dark.
"I bet," Finn says slowly, "what he's doing is pretty much exactly what you're doing. Just - not wanting to say anything when you both want to hear something -"
"Finn I would-" His jaw goes tight for a second, his eyes look wrong. "Really appreciate it if you would go now."
". . . all I wanna do is help, man."
Kurt says, very low, "Please, please, please, please go."
Finn can't believe, just can't understand Kurt and Blaine screwing this up, they've been as solid and certain as if their names got written next to each other in some big celestial book pairing people off and are they really going to let it all go to hell because of one big fight and a few vicious words-?
"Please," Kurt whispers, hanging his head but Finn already knows he's crying again. "Please, please, please . . ."
He stands up, swallows, squeezes his hands and lets them loose and walks out. He closes the door gently behind himself. He leaves the crackers and the soda. If he's lucky Kurt might notice that.
*
Monday morning. Kurt normally gets up about two hours earlier than Finn for school, he has a lot more getting ready to do. Finn comes slumping downstairs about ten minutes before he needs to be out of the door and finds Kurt in the back yard, tearing a bagel up and tossing bits of it for the birds. His dad must have made him breakfast before he left.
Finn looks at him warily, because Kurt looks like he hasn't slept in three days and hasn't eaten in three days and his hair's a little wild and his eyes are almost purple. "You okay for school?"
Kurt whispers, shredding the last bits of bagel in twitching fingers, "One more day in there and I will hang myself."
"Don't - joke about that."
"Don't be stupid." Kurt says to the yard. "I don't get a choice. I have to look after my dad."
Finn rubs a hand over his face, says, "I'll see you in the car, okay?" because Kurt might not want breakfast but it is actually all Finn can think about right now. He toasts two bagels and he's got one hanging out of his mouth as he opens the front door and nearly falls backwards because there's someone already standing there.
It's Blaine, hand raised to knock, staring dumbly at him. He lowers his hand, lets his breath out, and Finn stares back at him and can't say anything because of the bagel in his mouth. He almost looks just like Blaine, but his eyes look exhausted, and there's an odd ill tinge to his skin, and while he's wearing his Dalton uniform - the shirt isn't buttoned in quite the right holes.
He says, "Is he-?"
Finn steps to the side, jerks his head, takes a bite from the bagel and catches it in his hand as Blaine stumbles in over the step. "Back yard," he calls after him, so Blaine skids and changes direction at the stairs in a fraction of a second, tripping into the kitchen.
From the back door, Finn hears a yelp.
He leans against the wall for a bit, eating his bagel, counting. He gives them a good long minute.
Back through the hall, back into the kitchen, and he looks out of the back door. They're a tight-clutched embrace in the middle of the grass, arms dug in hard around each other, turning slowly like their legs are unsteady; they stumble to a halt with Kurt's back to the door, shoulders shaking, and Finn feels uncomfortable at the sight of Blaine's face, eyes closed hard over Kurt's shoulder. They make him feel uncomfortable a lot, not for any reason they might think; they make him realise that love, for him, has never been so intense, so maybe so far it's never really been love. He sort of always knew he'd one day look back on his high school girlfriends and sigh at himself, but he didn't think he'd be seventeen and watching his stepbrother crying into his boyfriend's shoulder when he did it. He wipes the crumbs from his fingers, and takes Kurt's phone from the fridge as he goes. He figures Kurt might need it again now.
*
He guesses that Kurt has a pretty stressful Monday morning ahead because Mercedes and Tina are waiting for him in the parking lot, they throw themselves at him furious and worried because he didn't pick his phone up once and he puts his head up, rolls his eyes, sweeps off with them saying he had a fight with Blaine like it doesn't even matter anymore. They make little noises of surprised sympathy and stop yelling, because Kurt never fights with Blaine. But there's the entire rest of glee club to harass him over missed calls and ignored texts, and Finn knows Kurt probably just doesn't need reminding what his weekend was.
Just before lunch Finn gets called out of Spanish class - he sees the surprise and concern on Mr Schuester's face as well - because 'his brother fainted in gym class'. In the nurse's office Kurt's sitting on one of the beds mostly looking flustered, taking a can of soda from the nurse and frowning. "I asked for diet."
"You get diet when you actually eat something." she says, and walks off through the curtain again, leaving them alone. Finn puts his hands in his pockets, shifts his weight on his heels, and Kurt gives her back a narrow-eyed look of your time will come before he sighs, pops the can open.
"Blood sugar, or, something." he says, shrugs and takes a sip.
"Are you okay?"
"Coach Beiste was making us run laps. I hate gym class."
"You seriously fainted?"
"So they tell me." Kurt says irritably. He presses the can to his cheek, closes his eyes and his shoulders slump. "I know there is no way I'm going to escape Dad finding out about this but would you please not tell Blaine? I will actually genuinely never hear the end of it."
"Dude, you didn't eat in like two days."
"I was stressed. My stomach - I can't, I never can when I'm stressed."
"Hey, then, don't stress yourself out." Kurt opens his eyes to glare at him, but Finn's pissed now, pissed for watching Kurt slice himself to pieces all weekend for no reason worth anything. "All either of you had to do was call each other and you both have to make each other miserable over-"
"In the future I'll be sure to always ask your advice since you're the guru of functional relationships, Finn." Kurt snaps back, but then stops, presses his lips together. He whispers, "Sorry."
Finn looks at the ceiling, shakes his head, swallows. "Just, whatever. Just, I don't care whatever fight you're having, you two would never want to - to do this to each other."
Kurt looks at the floor, doesn't say anything. Finn jigs his foot a bit in frustration, gives a jagged shrug. "Drink your damn soda. I'm standing over you while you eat lunch."
"You're going to tell him."
"Like you ever listen to me."
". . . I do, actually." Kurt swallows. "You notice a lot of things I don't."
Finn's silent for a bit, while Kurt drinks some soda and winces. "Tastes horrible. There's a reason I wanted diet."
"You need to look after yourself better. You stressed your dad out too."
Kurt closes his eyes, nods miserably. Finn's half terrified that he's going to start crying again, but he draws his breath in, says, very quietly, "I know. I'm sorry."
Finn rubs his nose, doesn't know what to say to that. ". . . hey. Promise me something?"
Kurt looks up, bleary and tired, now. Finn manages a grin. "Never actually break up with him, okay? Because I cannot even imagine picking you up after that."
Kurt's mouth twitches, and he shakes his head a little, and the smile breaks free like a flag getting loose in the wind, sudden and bright. "No. No. I won't."
Finn bops his shoulder awkwardly. Kurt rocks with it, gives him a raised eyebrow and an amused pout, and turns the can about in his fingers. "No." he says, quiet and sure. "I won't."
Nineteen
New York is and is not what they expected.
They do end up going to the same college, but they decide not to room together at least at first; relationships are all about compromise. They're both far more grateful to have each other there than they knew they would be, certainly more than Blaine knew he would be - Kurt knows that Blaine likes to act confident but suddenly in the middle of a huge alien city, Blaine's the one who reaches for his hand when they walk. Kurt never denies him it. There are a handful of complexities, sure, but they still work primarily as a unit, supporting and sympathising with each other, and occasionally bitching each other out about whatever bullshit they're pulling. They know each other too well, except for the times when they don't know each other quite enough.
Kurt's roommate turns out to be an asshole within five minutes. Kurt can tell he's uncomfortable with Blaine helping him unload his stuff, but Kurt kisses Blaine goodbye in the doorway for his first night alone away from home, and still the roommate is being a shuffly asshole over at his laptop. Feeling mean, Kurt digs out the comfortable old Likes boys t-shirt to sleep in. He is not in Lima anymore and he does not have to take this shit.
For almost the whole first semester Kurt's at guerrilla war with the boy he shares his bedroom with, leaving LGBTsoc pamphlets lying about and ignoring his glares, and Kurt starts sleeping less in case the roommate gets up in the night to smother him in his sleep. At breakfast in the campus cafeteria Blaine rubs his hair - he's wearing it looser now he's out of the Dalton uniform, he seems to be piecing together who he actually is now he doesn't have a blazer to hide behind - and says, "I think my roommate is on drugs."
Kurt unpeels a banana. "What makes you say that?"
Blaine waves half a bagel about, frowning. "Last night he asked me why there were spiders. At first I thought he was having some crazy hallucination but then it turned out he was asking the question more philosophically. Like, why are there spiders? And it was midnight and I have biology first thing and I just, I did not want to deal with it. I don't know why there are spiders. Just to freak me out I think sometimes."
Kurt pats his hand, eats his banana. "My roommate is an asshole."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"Come over tonight and make out with me on my bed."
"Because you want to make out with me or because you want to freak him out?"
"Both. I like you in that shirt."
"Okay." Blaine bites into his bagel, grins. "I thought about you when I bought it. I think about you whenever I buy clothes."
"Mm, I thought your taste was improving."
Blaine laughs. Kurt just smiles, happy as if all the world is golden, because he's in New York and he has a gender studies class to go to and Blaine is the best thing ever.
Two weeks from the end of the first semester, Kurt applies for a room switch, it's just getting absurd, he can't work with the asshole muttering in the corner, can't sleep if he keeps staying out late to avoid coming back to a room with Kurt in it. One night he jolts Kurt out of sleep banging the door and Kurt sits up, the lamp's still on and half an essay falls off his bed, and as the boy stares at him Kurt draws his breath in through his nose and says, "While I promise you I'm flattered I actually do love my boyfriend and you're not really my type, honestly, I'm sorry if it hurts your feelings but I don't give a crap about you. Except when you wake me up in the middle of the damn night like a hippo coming up to a watering hole."
He mutters something, goes into the bathroom to change. Kurt pulls the pillow over his head, fumes, picks up the paperwork first thing in the morning. Under Reason for application he writes 'My roommate is a homophobic asshole'. It's reason enough.
He gets a text from Blaine during a philosophy seminar, calls him as soon as he's out. "My roommate is definitely on drugs," Blaine says, sounding only perplexed. "And he's gone. His stuff was gone last night and I found a note in the bathroom saying he's dropped out and moved into a squat in the city to 'raise his consciousness' and inviting me to join him. Do you think I need my consciousness raising?"
"Only with regards to some of the contents of your iPod. I applied for a room switch, if my roommate doesn't kill me I'm going to kill him."
"Huh. Bad day for roommates."
"So . . ." Kurt leans against the wall of the building, holding his books to himself with an arm. "I don't have a room. You don't have a roommate."
"Yes, it does sort of look like the universe is telling us something, doesn't it?"
Kurt moves his stuff out that night, Blaine and some of the guys from Blaine's building help. They put Kurt's boxes in Blaine's room, have a party, push the beds together, don't look back. They wake up in the morning with beer cans everywhere, tangled in with each other on their two-bed bed, and Kurt smiles and Blaine nuzzles back into the crook of his neck and nothing will ever, Kurt thinks, be better than this.
*
Blaine's building contains a surprisingly high concentration of gay; students do seem to be oddly distributed, so all the incense-burning Buddhist vegetarians live together in the block opposite them and their own building contains six guys Kurt knows of who are gay or bi, including him and Blaine, not even counting the girls. It also contains four guys called Dave and another Kurt, who's three times Kurt's size and on a football scholarship. He's referred to as 'Football Kurt' to save people from confusion. Kurt's referred to as 'Kurt and Blaine'.
"So Kurt said-"
"Which Kurt?"
"Kurt and Blaine, he said-"
Blaine draws graphs plotting the weirdly uneven distribution of the student body until Kurt makes him stop.
They're pretty compatible roommates, which makes Kurt glow with hope and relief. Kurt sets up a laundry system because Blaine is a bit hopeless, has never had to care for himself in this way before, is simply bemused by domestic matters Kurt's been arranging since he was big enough to reach the dials on the machine. They both have a lot more time now they don't have to find the time to see each other anymore. Studying together they already know is actually helpful, because they complement each other's strengths and weaknesses so well; Blaine helps Kurt with the horrible horrible complexities of working out study samples and plotting graphs for psych, and Kurt reads Blaine's essays through and highlights sections of No, how does your brain work, not even crazy people think like that.
Also there's the fact that now they can have more sex than they ever even knew they wanted. It's almost silly, but Blaine is just there all the time and they know that they can keep their hands off each other but - Kurt feels like he needs a parade, he needs tickertape for this announcement - they don't have to anymore. They go at it until they're sore but they still don't stop. Life is great.
Life is complicated. Life does things you don't expect it to.
The immediate problem is Glen but maybe it's been a problem for Blaine for longer, forever, Kurt doesn't know, doesn't want to ask. He hates Glen, anyway. Glen's first ever interaction with Kurt at a party in Blond Dave's room was to grab his ass and ask his name, in that order. Kurt has issues with aggressive come ons. Blaine got between them not because his boyfriend just got groped but because Kurt was shrieking at him to never touch him and maybe it was the vodka or maybe it was just that -
Kurt has issues with aggressive come ons.
It's his fault Blaine ever even becomes friends with Glen, he feels like he ought to after Kurt screams the guy out like that. Glen keeps his hands to himself and smirks a lot instead and Kurt hates him and hates him and hates him. Hates him for how casually he checks over guys' bodies, like every body is just a body, like there's not a person living in it. Hates him for checking Blaine over, fuck you, don't even look at him, he's the best thing Kurt has and he's not for sharing. Hates him for checking him over. God it makes his skin ripple with revulsion, being looked at like that. Sex means sex with Blaine. Otherwise his body is something to hang clothes on and dance with, and should be of no real interest to any other human being on the planet.
They come back after Christmas and settle immediately back into the same easy rhythms, they audition for the same play, Kurt tutors other students in French for the money. But somehow they have less time for each other despite sharing a room. The homework piles up, and Kurt needs to study in the library more because Blaine is distracting in any number of ways. When he gets back on a night Blaine's not always there; he texts and he's at a bar with Glen and some guys. Kurt doesn't want to go out, wants to curl up in bed with his boyfriend and get his hands warmed up, but it lumps in his throat the way Glen looks at Blaine sometimes so he puts his scarf back on and heads out anyway. And yes, he's ratty. He's not much fun. Blaine keeps giving him the puzzled, annoyed eyebrows and talks to everyone else instead. Kurt's tired and not where he wants to be and ratty. Bisexual Dave talks to him though, which does at least make Blaine take his hand under the table. Everyone knows that Bisexual Dave's in love with Kurt.
Actually everyone does know that, even Kurt who objects strongly to aggressive come ons but is fairly oblivious to every other sort, Blaine has to point out to him the guy who just stared at his ass for five minutes and the fact that a waiter was flirting with him. But it would be obvious to an alien that Bisexual Dave is in love with Kurt, and Kurt likes him, feels fond and sorry about it all, pushes his glass sulkily about on the table and holds Blaine's hand but not his attention, and listens to Bisexual Dave mumble about Morrissey. Kurt's exhausted when they leave, and he has a French lesson to take in the morning. Blaine touches him in bed and he rolls away. It's the first time either of them has ever turned down sex.
He gets back in that night and Blaine's not there again. He's too tired to care, tired enough to cry, goes to bed instead. He wakes up when Blaine trips onto him in the dark, shoves him off and snaps, "Where were you?"
"Out. It's Saturday night. I texted, you didn't reply."
"I could've been dead down an alleyway for all you knew."
Blaine rubs his fingers into his eyes. "Don't do this. There was tequila."
Kurt snorts, jerks the sheets over himself again, lays rigid with his back to Blaine as he pulls his clothes off and climbs in. He can feel Blaine thinking about initiating sex but then he sighs in the dark instead, tumbles his limbs limp in his gracelessly graceful way, and Kurt lays there with his throat full and hurting wishing he could just touch him and everything would be the way it always should be, while Blaine sleeps the tequila off.
*
It's a Thursday night when he's sitting at the desk, head propped on the heel of his hand, struggling over a psychology assignment without Blaine there to help. Around nine o' clock the door opens and Blaine walks in, looking drained and unsteady. Kurt sits up, blinks.
"Are you okay?" And then, "Are you drunk?"
Blaine rubs his forehead. "There . . . Glen wanted to talk."
Kurt feels his heart pick up, beating like the frightened fast heart of a rabbit, the fear contained only by the stone-hard fury tightening his ribs. "He wanted to talk. With alcohol. How nice. How lovely."
"Don't do this, okay, don't, I want to talk." Blaine sits on the end of the bed and Kurt turns the chair to him and the pen drops out of his fingers.
"You want to 'talk'."
"Not - like that, don't look like that, Kurt, don't, I love you, okay? I do."
Don't say it like that. Don't say it like it's one issue amongst many; it's the only issue. He says, and it scalds his tongue and the roof of his mouth as it comes out, "I love you too."
Blaine rubs his forehead, shrugs tightly. "We're a bit of a mess right now."
"We're not anything right now," Kurt says, and swallows. "I hardly ever see you. We're working or else you're out getting drunk with cretins."
"They're not - okay, they are cretins. But college is hard, and it's fun, you know?"
"You wouldn't find it hard if you weren't hungover all the damn time. For the most intelligent guy I know you are really stupid sometimes."
"And you are always on my case, you're not my mom, Kurt."
"I'm sure both of us are glad of that seeing as your mother hates me, Blaine."
"Just, can you just not drag everything else into it when I'm trying to talk to you about this? You need to chill. Jesus. If you could just relax sometimes-"
"How can I relax?" He wants to scream it at him, it comes out sharp and high and punctured somehow like his lungs just broke. "I have work, I have tutoring sessions to plan, I come home and you're never here and I sound like a whiny fifties wife but Blaine I need you around and you're always off- somewhere, I don't even know half the time anymore, don't you - don't you even want to spend time with me?"
"Of course I do, I just-" Blaine rubs his forehead, sucks his breath in, sits up with his back straight. Kurt can't bear the look on his face, his determination to say something difficult when Kurt knows, with the cold knowledge that dread is, what is coming. "Please just listen, I'm seriously trying to think about this, please take it seriously. Do you think we made too much out of this? Living together and depending so much on each other, do you think -?"
"No," Kurt whispers, and feels faint. "No, I don't. I think we're screwing it up but I think it is right. We are right. We're just - not right now, but we can be, we are -"
"Okay. Okay, listen, please." Blaine reaches over, takes Kurt's numb hands, squeezes them, looks up into his face. "I love you, Kurt, I know that, I know I do. But."
"Don't say 'but'. Not after that, don't ever say 'but'-"
"But I just - do you think it's right? We could - make our entire lives each other but - we've both never even - we've never even really kissed other people before-"
Kurt's voice comes out low. "'Before'."
Blaine watches his face. Kurt sees the tension of guilt in his eyes, feels it sick inside, what has already happened. Blaine says, stating it carefully, "Glen kissed me."
Kurt turns his head a little, eyes on the wall, working his way through how he possibly can respond to it. He closes his eyes for a second, opens them, says very, very quietly, "Did you kiss him back?"
". . . eventually. Kurt-"
He pulls his hands back, stumbles out of the chair, bangs his back into the wall of the room with his arms wrapped around himself. "Of course you did. Of course you-"
"I just - I am trying to work some stuff out, okay, can you just give me the time to-"
"To what? What are you asking me for? To let you go fuck someone else and wait for you to get bored and come back to me? To keep the bed warm and let you 'experiment' again-"
"I am just trying to work some stuff out, Kurt!"
"Work out what, whether you love me enough to not fuck other guys too? What the hell does love even mean from you?"
Blaine knocks the chair over shoving himself into Kurt's face. "It means nearly four years we've been together without ever questioning it and all I need is for you to shut up for five minutes to let me think!"
Kurt stares at him, breathing tight and quick, while Blaine's dark eyes glitter his glare up at him, his hands in fists at his sides. Kurt swallows, and can't compress himself any closer to the wall, and his muscles are so tense he's trembling a little but he doesn't lower his head. "Well what now?" he says, very dry and very quiet, no breath to say it any louder, his lips feel weak. "How simple are you going to make it, Blaine?"
Blaine - understands, in one shocked second, what he means. He backs off immediately, giving Kurt the room to properly shiver, because Blaine has always had to keep his temper in check but never, never against Kurt. Blaine folds his arms, rubs them a bit, looks just stunned. "I just need - to -" He sounds so lost. "I just need some space to think."
Kurt turns his shoulder into the wall, huddles there trying so hard to stop the shaking. "Go ask Glen for advice. He has all the best ideas."
Blaine says, "You know what? Just - screw you, right now." He wrenches the door open. "I need to clear my head."
Kurt puts his forehead to the wall so Blaine won't see him cry. He probably doesn't look back before slamming the door anyway.
Student accommodation does not have the thickest walls. Kurt's mostly managed to stop crying when there's a knock at the door, soft and uncertain, and he sniffs, drops his tissue in the trash, opens the door not expecting Blaine because Blaine wouldn't knock like that even if he would knock at his own door. It's Bisexual Dave, wearing his battered black trench coat even indoors, a six pack of beer under his arm. "Um. I - heard. I wondered if you wanted . . . cheering up."
Kurt rolls his eyes to the ceiling - everyone in the building probably heard, and Bisexual Dave lives immediately above them - and opens the door a little wider. "I definitely need cheering up," he says, and walks back in to drop on the bed. He doesn't know what he's meant to do. He feels like some essential tether has been cut and his weight's tipped all wrong, he's coming loose, he doesn't know what to expect or how to act. If Blaine goes back to Glen -
If Blaine has sex with Glen.
Kurt puts his hand over his mouth, swallows, takes a can from Dave and whispers, "Thank you."
Everything about Dave is awkward. He's ridiculously long-limbed and bony and permanently apologetic about how much space he takes up, and he speaks like he's uncertain of every word out of his mouth. "You okay?"
"No." Kurt grins weakly, turns it off again quickly. "No. I don't know - what's happening."
Dave sits there for a moment, stiff as a clothes prop, then unfolds an arm, puts it around Kurt's shoulder, squeezes a careful five second hug and lets go again. Kurt could almost laugh, wipes his eyes off again and croaks, "Thank you."
Dave shrugs a little. Kurt snaps his can open. If Blaine can get drunk to solve all his problems, so can Kurt.
After an hour of speed-drinking and letting Dave play really weird music on Spotify Kurt doesn't exactly feel better, he just feels sort of numbed. Sometimes he lets the edge of his mind touch on if Blaine and the nausea swings up like something physically shoves him, he sucks his breath in, chugs more beer. He tries to get Dave to talk about Cara, the vague-eyed girl in chipped black nail polish he's dating. Dave mumbles.
There are only two cans left when Dave puts the Magnetic Fields on and Kurt makes a little noise out loud because they hurt too much right now. Dave sits next to him on the bed again, rubs his legs in their black jeans awkwardly. Kurt wipes an eye off on the inside of his wrist, mumbles, "I don't know when it got bad, I don't know what-"
He looks up, at the way Dave's looking down at him. He stops, and presses his lips together because he feels them open without his intending it.
Dave leans down in little hesitant stages, so it's not like Kurt doesn't have the time to make him stop. All he does is quiver a little, and close his eyes. Dave's mouth is somehow cooler than Blaine's, wider, somehow there's sharper definition to his lips, it's just all different. His breath comes out against Kurt's cheek and Kurt feels the press of his tongue, lets it in just because taking any action at all is a bit beyond him right now.
Dave's hand catches at the back of his neck. Kurt starts to respond, there's a hunger in the way Dave kisses him that he hasn't felt in a while, he hasn't felt wanted in a while, and he touches, catches his fingers in the frayed neck of Dave's black t-shirt -
And realises that he's crying. He ducks his head, gasps his breath out, puts his hands over his wet face. "Sorry," he whispers and it chokes. "Sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't -"
Dave swallows, peels back off him like a tree unfolding, stands up. "Sorry. Sorry, I shouldn't- I was only going to - you were sad, and-"
Kurt shakes his head behind his hands, feels himself coming to pieces. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please-"
"I should go."
"Sorry," Kurt whispers, curling himself up closer on the bed. "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm sorry, I just-"
"I shouldn't, I'm sorry, I'll-"
They apologise to each other all the way until the door's closed behind Dave and Kurt can curl up on the bed again and sob just out of self-pity this time, because he can't hate Blaine for doing what he apparently does too now.
Blaine. His body aches for him, it's a physical pain of want, just Blaine, only Blaine and his Blaine-smell and his Blaine-warmth, but Blaine wants other people and Kurt isn't worth him now -
The door opens, a careful click, a slow swing. He sits, sniffs and puts a hand over his nose because he doesn't have a tissue, and Blaine stares back wearing probably the same shocked expression Kurt's wearing. "I -" Blaine says, and closes the door behind himself, looks stricken. "Please tell me you haven't just been crying since I left."
Kurt swallows, reaches for a tissue to hide behind. "No. Not always." He waves a hand at the beer cans beside the bed. "Dave came over."
"Which Dave?"
"Bisexual Dave. To cheer me . . . up."
There's silence for a moment, before Blaine says, shoulders hunched, his voice hopeful of making Kurt smile, "Looks like he did a really good job of it."
Kurt wipes his face off, draws his breath in, looks up at Blaine. "Where were you?"
Blaine looks away, opens his mouth, closes it and looks angry. "I did go to talk to Glen."
Kurt swallows, draws his head up and all his strength in tight. "And?"
"And Glen's an asshole." Blaine looks back at him, his face tight, Kurt knows when he's stressed. "Which I did - know. I did, anyway, and now I have confirmation. So I took a walk. I cooled my head. I've been trying to think how to say this to you honestly."
The tears come again and Kurt feels miserable with it, that this is how it happens, Blaine is honest and then what's Kurt supposed to do with the rest of his life? But Blaine says, "No, no, no." and sits next to him on the bed, puts his arm around him. Kurt's too pathetic to pull away, to shove him off, to say fuck you first. He just lets Blaine stuff Kurt's head into his shoulder (oh god the Blaine-smell and Blaine-warmth) and cries.
"I think," Blaine says, pulling him closer with his arm around him, shaking him a little with each word. "That you and I feel like we should be the rest of each other's lives. But - Kurt, we're still just kids. What kind of relationships last from sixteen until - well, without an 'until'? I just - this is great, us, this is perfect and I - I worry about when it'll break. Because - because these things break."
"No," Kurt chokes into his jacket. "Not if we don't let it."
Blaine squeezes his shoulder. "I keep steering between thinking that we'll be together forever so it doesn't matter if I go out and hang out with other people and do stupid things because of course we'll be fine - and looking for the thing that's going to split us up just because something has to, no-one gets an easy shot at this, why do we think we're so different, who actually finds the love of their life at sixteen?"
"Me." Kurt snarls, going down with a fight now he's going.
"I know." Blaine lowers his head, his breath closer to Kurt's ear now. "I know." He strokes the back of Kurt's neck. "Me too."
Kurt just leans against him for some time, breathing hard against Blaine's hot-running body, he can feel how quick Blaine's own breath is coming with stress. "I'm tired and a bit drunk," he confesses. "Are you dumping me?"
"No." He loves how that 'no' comes out, the helpless breath behind it, how hopeless and how gentle Blaine sounds. "No. God. Not if you're not dumping me."
"No," Kurt says, and hangs onto his shirt, and then remembers. "Bisexual Dave kissed me."
"What?"
"Just before you came back. He was trying to cheer me up by playing the most miserable music in the world and feeding me beer. Then, he kissed me."
". . . did you kiss him back?"
Kurt says, too exhausted to feel amused, "Eventually."
Blaine's silent for a moment, but he doesn't let go, just strokes Kurt's side. "Do we count it as even and forget it?"
"I don't care about any of it if you still love me."
"Kurt," his hand runs over Kurt's cheek, lifts his face. "I always love you."
He kisses him and Kurt's hand closes in his hair; Blaine taste, Blaine warmth, Blaine smell. Oh.
Their sex is more intense than it usually is, Blaine's eyes never leave his face, checking his every hitching breath, Kurt's hands possessive on him. The orgasm is a juddering overpowering thing getting in through his groin and belly and all the way through his body and opening him somehow while Blaine makes little keening noises and jolts, jolts, jolts his hips like he can't help it. Afterwards he slumps over Kurt, heart beating hard into his ribs while Kurt runs his fingers back through his hair, down the back of his neck, over his smooth flexing shoulders. For some time they just lie tangled and heavy and sticky together, before peeling apart a little, rocking and shuffling until they're side by side, Kurt's arm over Blaine's waist and Blaine holding it there by the elbow, brushing some hair back from Kurt's forehead, watching his face. He looks sleepy, tired, still warm-skinned with sex. Kurt pretty much could stare at him forever, major in Blaine Anderson and forget the rest of the world.
Blaine's fingers run over his cheek. He says drowsily, "When you cry all the blue comes out with it."
Kurt blinks still-damp eyelashes. "What?"
"Nothing. It's nothing." He holds Kurt's cheek, raises his head to kiss his forehead. "This is what I want. I'm just - I'm good at wrecking the things I really want for myself."
"I'm trying to work out," Kurt says, because he doesn't know if it doesn't make sense because Kurt's so tired and drunk or just because it's Blaine so of course it doesn't, "how you can be scared of us breaking up and scared of us not breaking up at the same time."
"Mostly I'm just - always scared, really."
"Don't be." Kurt puts a hand on Blaine's cheek and kisses the other one. "Don't. Don't I take good care of you?"
"You do." He catches Kurt's wrist, closes his fingers around it, kisses him again. "You do, you always do, I don't . . . know how my brain works sometimes."
"No-one knows how your brain works sometimes."
"I think I'm trying to have my irresponsible youth. I never got one, I figure I have to eventually."
Kurt runs his fingers through his hair. "Can we say that you had it now?"
"Yes. I think I'm done. I actually like my classes, I want to do well."
"Good."
"So, how about we arrange an irresponsible youth for you? You work really hard, I think you need one."
"I have to work hard. It's - it takes a lot, Blaine, for my parents, me and Finn at college at the same time, so I can't just screw around, I have to make something of this. And I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything." He runs his finger around Blaine's cheek, watches his eyes, lips parting a little in a smile. "You make me feel wild. So I don't feel like it's all work and no play, you know . . . ?"
"You should schedule in some time for dancing." Blaine runs his fingers up and down Kurt's arm. "Just you and me if you like. Can I book your Friday nights . . . ?"
Kurt bites his lip around the grin. "My dance card? All you. And you know it."
Blaine smiles, but there's something faint about it and he lets it die quickly, his eyes flicking between Kurt's. "Did . . . you didn't think that I was going to - to hurt you. Earlier. When we were shouting. You didn't think that, did you? Because I wouldn't, I would never, I would never-"
"I know. I know." Kurt strokes his hair a little, like calming a child. "I know you wouldn't. I just - then - I didn't feel like I knew you, then."
"You're the only person who knows me."
Kurt watches his face, licks his lips, nuzzles in close again. "I don't care about any of it. I don't. I don't give a shit. As long as you're here -"
"I don't know how to do anything right without you anymore."
"-then that's fine. Everything will be fine."
They are a tired boozy mess, both of them. Blaine huddles, and Kurt holds him, gets his cheek comfortable propped half on the pillow and half on Blaine's head. In the moment, no, he hadn't known if Blaine would shove him, hit him, he just didn't know. What he has realised since was that it wouldn't change a thing. He knows it's meant to. He knows that you leave someone the first time they do that because of what it says about them, that they can do that to someone who loves them. But it's Blaine. He could never mean it. He would be so so sorry if he did, and he wouldn't, because he's the most idiotically innocent person Kurt's ever met and -
Blaine mumbles into his throat, like it's some feverish obsession, "I wouldn't. I wouldn't."
Kurt kisses the top of his head and believes him. "I know. I know you wouldn't. I know you better than anybody."
Blaine's sigh pools over his breastbone. Kurt runs his fingers through his hair, down his back, hums just softly. No, he wouldn't. If there is ever anything approaching a next time, he'll remember this, and he won't.
"I might," he says, and Blaine's body gives a little shivering snigger before he slips into sleep.
On to part 2