Fanfiction: Behind the Curtain (Glee, Kurt/Blaine)
Title: Behind the Curtain
Fandom: Glee
Rating: PG
Pairing: Kurt/Blaine
Wordcount: 1,800
Summary: Something is very, very wrong with Dalton Academy. Kurt just can't figure out what.
Warnings: Creepy. Spoilers for 'Furt'.
(EDIT: browntroutblues has recorded this in podfic form, and she has done it perfectly, if you're interested!)
Moving to Dalton is the best decision Kurt has made in his life. His contemporaries are friendly and helpful; well, Wes, David and Blaine are, although he doesn’t seem to have really met anyone else yet. No matter how late he thinks he is, he always seems to get to his classes just as they’re starting; that can’t really be anything to do with moving to Dalton, obviously, but it’s as if life has suddenly decided to run smoothly for him. Even better is the fact that Blaine sits with him in all his classes; it seems a little odd (isn’t he meant to be in the year above him?), but Kurt isn’t going to complain.
Sometimes it seems that Dalton is almost too perfect. Kurt is so happy here he thinks he might die.
-
The first time Kurt has lunch at Dalton, Blaine insists on leading him to the dining hall, which seems unnecessary, as it turns out to be practically right outside their classroom (Kurt’s already forgotten what the lesson was about, which isn’t a good sign; he has to focus more if he wants to succeed here, no matter how distracting Blaine’s presence is). Kurt smiles and quietly files this away in his mind as evidence that Blaine actually wants to spend time with him, rather than feeling obliged to.
They collect their food and head through to the dining hall itself. The heavy oak doors swing open in front of them, and Kurt is surprised to see that the place is empty of students, the long tables bare. “Where is everyone?”
“What do you mean?” Blaine asks.
David bumps into Kurt and apologises, adjusting his tray, and suddenly Kurt can’t remember what he was talking about. “Nothing. Never mind.”
They sit down next to Wes, who nods a greeting to them, and Kurt starts on his meal. He feels a little selfconscious about eating in front of these Dalton boys - he eats too fast, he knows, a habit learned from a school in which you had to finish your lunch before someone threw it into your face - but Wes is too busy with his own plate to be watching him.
Blaine is watching him, Kurt finds when he glances in his direction: watching Kurt eat with a little smile on his face. He doesn’t have any food of his own. Kurt, embarrassed, returns to his meal and tries not to look at Blaine again.
The food is delicious, although Kurt finds he’s already forgotten what it was by the time he’s finished it, so he won’t be able to enter it into his calorie diary. He’s still hungry, anyway, so it probably wasn’t too much.
-
Kurt walks through a door and finds himself in an unfamiliar bedroom. He freezes, and he’s just about to begin gabbling apologies to the boy buttoning up his shirt on the side of the bed when he realises it’s Blaine.
Not that that means he doesn’t still have to apologise. In a way, it makes this even more mortifying. “God, Blaine, I’m so sorry, I thought this was Spanish class...”
“Calm down,” Blaine interrupts, smiling. “I wanted to see you, anyway.”
“I could swear that was the door to Spanish class,” Kurt says, beginning to calm down a little. “Why does your room lead straight off the Languages corridor?”
“It doesn’t,” Blaine says. “I mean, come on, that wouldn’t make any sense.”
Kurt stares at him for a moment, then turns around and opens the door to check. They are quite clearly in the dorms.
“I must be losing my mind,” he says, quietly.
“You’re probably just tired,” Blaine says. “Don’t think too much about it.”
“What about Spanish, though?” he asks, turning back to Blaine. “We’re already late.”
“We’ve got plenty of time,” Blaine says. “You have an amazing voice, Kurt. I wanted us to try out a duet.”
Kurt hesitates, then smiles.
They sing for half an hour and reach the classroom just as Spanish is starting.
-
Kurt falls ill not long after starting at Dalton, and he spends a few days in bed, slipping in and out of consciousness. When he’s awake, he’s sometimes aware of Blaine’s hand on his forehead, Blaine’s voice murmuring things he can’t make out into his ear.
When he’s feeling strong enough to return to the world, he unlocks his door and sets off in the direction of his English class. The question of how Blaine managed to get in if the door was locked flits briefly across his mind, but it’s quickly driven out by the sight of Blaine himself, sitting at their usual desk and grinning at him.
“Hi, Kurt,” the teacher says, smiling. “We were just about to start. Sit down.”
“Hey,” Kurt says quietly to Blaine, as he slips into his seat. “So you know how I’ve been sick the past couple of days?”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Blaine says. He really does look contrite, Kurt notices with some amusement, as if he feels somehow personally responsible.
“Could you talk me through the classes I missed? I’ll understand if you don’t have the time, but - ”
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about catching up,” Blaine says. The teacher, Kurt is somewhat disconcerted to realise, hasn’t actually started the lesson yet, as if she’s waiting for them to finish their conversation. “All our classes were cancelled while you were sick. Snow.”
“Oh,” Kurt says, bemused. “That’s convenient.”
“Isn’t it?” Blaine agrees, cheerfully.
-
Kurt stands at the entrance to the dining hall, and there’s nowhere to sit. The wooden tables stretch away impossibly far, until they’re swallowed up by darkness in the distance, and all the seats are filled, and every person there is Wes or David. Two Davids stand up to offer him their seats (and that’s just one more thing that makes Dalton the perfect school; how often would something like that happen at McKinley?), but Kurt declines.
And then there’s a hand on his shoulder and Blaine’s voice murmuring “Eating without me?” into his ear, warm and amused, and Kurt finds himself being led to a small round table he hadn’t noticed before, off to one side. There’s a white tablecloth. There are candles. A few Weses and Davids wolf-whistle.
“Blaine,” Kurt hisses. “I can’t eat like this in front of everyone.”
“In front of who?” Blaine asks, frowning, and when Kurt looks around he sees that the hall is empty and dark: it’s just them, lit in the flickering light of the candles on the table.
It’s a lovely meal, but as it gets later the conversation runs out and Kurt starts looking around the hall, feeling warm and at ease. There’s not much to see, though: the light of the candles doesn’t seem to reach the tables any more; it’s as if they’re sitting on a tiny island of light in the middle of a pitch-black ocean. Some of the wall behind Blaine is still illuminated, but when Kurt tries to look at the painting on it he can only get the vaguest impression of a human figure; it seems blurred, somehow, and his eyes slide off it.
Their empty plates have disappeared, he notices, although he doesn’t remember anyone coming to take them away. “You must have very stealthy staff here,” he observes.
Blaine gives him a perplexed look, and then his eyes slide down to the tablecloth. “Oh, God,” he says. “I forgot about the plates.”
Kurt is confused, and he’s even more confused when he looks down at the table and the plates are there. He doesn’t know how he missed them before; it’s not as if the table has many places to hide.
“I’m sorry,” Blaine says, concealing a yawn behind his hand. “I’m just tired. It gets harder to... uh, to concentrate. You should get some sleep, too.”
It’s not until Blaine says that that Kurt realises how tired he is. It’s not exactly how a part of him had been quietly hoping this evening might end, but suddenly all he wants to do is sleep. “Okay,” he says. “Thanks.”
Blaine holds open the dining hall doors for him, and Kurt walks through into his room. He’s apparently so sleepy that he doesn’t even notice himself changing into his pyjamas, and as soon as he realises he’s already wearing them he falls into bed and shuts off.
-
Kurt wakes in the middle of the night and knows that he has to get out of here. He doesn’t even take the time to change out of his admittedly stylish pyjamas; just pushes open his door and runs straight through onto the cold tile of the entrance hall, barefoot.
Blaine is standing by the enormous front door, dressed in his uniform. He waves, looking unfairly perky for three o’clock in the morning, especially given how tired he was before. Why is he here at three in the morning, anyway? Well, at least it means Kurt will get to see him before leaving. “Hey, Kurt. What’s up?”
“I have to go,” Kurt says. “I’m sorry, Blaine, I really like it here, and I like you, but I can’t stay here.”
“Hey, hey, okay,” Blaine says, catching him by the arms. “Why do you have to go?”
He can’t articulate it. He knows there’s a reason he has to get out of here, but he can’t get it clear in his head. “I can’t stay.”
“Is someone bullying you?” Blaine asks, watching him, his head tilted to one side. “Wes? David?”
“Nobody’s bullying me.”
“Then why do you have to leave?” Blaine asks, gently.
Kurt blinks back frustrated tears. “Look, you’re trying to help, I get it, but I actually do need to get out of here now.”
“Without any shoes?”
Kurt glances down at his feet and then back up at Blaine. He can feel himself beginning to flush.
“Where are you going to go? You can’t go back to McKinley; you weren’t safe there. I saw how frightened you were.”
Kurt is frightened now; the only difference is he can’t explain why. “Please let me go.”
“I can make things better for you,” Blaine says. “I can bring Mercedes here, if you want. You’ll be happy here. I promise.”
Something about Mercedes coming to Dalton doesn’t make any sense, but Kurt can’t pin down what it is. And he does miss her. And Blaine is smiling at him and very close and it’s getting more and more difficult to think.
They’re in his bedroom. Weren’t they in the hall a moment ago? He must be imagining things.
“It’s cold outside,” Blaine says. His fingers are warm and immovable around Kurt’s wrist. “Stay here with me.”
“Okay,” Kurt breathes, and when Blaine kisses him he can’t remember why he ever considered leaving.
-
The front door is missing when he and Blaine come down for breakfast the next morning, but that’s okay; he probably wasn’t going to need it, anyway.
Fandom: Glee
Rating: PG
Pairing: Kurt/Blaine
Wordcount: 1,800
Summary: Something is very, very wrong with Dalton Academy. Kurt just can't figure out what.
Warnings: Creepy. Spoilers for 'Furt'.
(EDIT: browntroutblues has recorded this in podfic form, and she has done it perfectly, if you're interested!)
Moving to Dalton is the best decision Kurt has made in his life. His contemporaries are friendly and helpful; well, Wes, David and Blaine are, although he doesn’t seem to have really met anyone else yet. No matter how late he thinks he is, he always seems to get to his classes just as they’re starting; that can’t really be anything to do with moving to Dalton, obviously, but it’s as if life has suddenly decided to run smoothly for him. Even better is the fact that Blaine sits with him in all his classes; it seems a little odd (isn’t he meant to be in the year above him?), but Kurt isn’t going to complain.
Sometimes it seems that Dalton is almost too perfect. Kurt is so happy here he thinks he might die.
-
The first time Kurt has lunch at Dalton, Blaine insists on leading him to the dining hall, which seems unnecessary, as it turns out to be practically right outside their classroom (Kurt’s already forgotten what the lesson was about, which isn’t a good sign; he has to focus more if he wants to succeed here, no matter how distracting Blaine’s presence is). Kurt smiles and quietly files this away in his mind as evidence that Blaine actually wants to spend time with him, rather than feeling obliged to.
They collect their food and head through to the dining hall itself. The heavy oak doors swing open in front of them, and Kurt is surprised to see that the place is empty of students, the long tables bare. “Where is everyone?”
“What do you mean?” Blaine asks.
David bumps into Kurt and apologises, adjusting his tray, and suddenly Kurt can’t remember what he was talking about. “Nothing. Never mind.”
They sit down next to Wes, who nods a greeting to them, and Kurt starts on his meal. He feels a little selfconscious about eating in front of these Dalton boys - he eats too fast, he knows, a habit learned from a school in which you had to finish your lunch before someone threw it into your face - but Wes is too busy with his own plate to be watching him.
Blaine is watching him, Kurt finds when he glances in his direction: watching Kurt eat with a little smile on his face. He doesn’t have any food of his own. Kurt, embarrassed, returns to his meal and tries not to look at Blaine again.
The food is delicious, although Kurt finds he’s already forgotten what it was by the time he’s finished it, so he won’t be able to enter it into his calorie diary. He’s still hungry, anyway, so it probably wasn’t too much.
-
Kurt walks through a door and finds himself in an unfamiliar bedroom. He freezes, and he’s just about to begin gabbling apologies to the boy buttoning up his shirt on the side of the bed when he realises it’s Blaine.
Not that that means he doesn’t still have to apologise. In a way, it makes this even more mortifying. “God, Blaine, I’m so sorry, I thought this was Spanish class...”
“Calm down,” Blaine interrupts, smiling. “I wanted to see you, anyway.”
“I could swear that was the door to Spanish class,” Kurt says, beginning to calm down a little. “Why does your room lead straight off the Languages corridor?”
“It doesn’t,” Blaine says. “I mean, come on, that wouldn’t make any sense.”
Kurt stares at him for a moment, then turns around and opens the door to check. They are quite clearly in the dorms.
“I must be losing my mind,” he says, quietly.
“You’re probably just tired,” Blaine says. “Don’t think too much about it.”
“What about Spanish, though?” he asks, turning back to Blaine. “We’re already late.”
“We’ve got plenty of time,” Blaine says. “You have an amazing voice, Kurt. I wanted us to try out a duet.”
Kurt hesitates, then smiles.
They sing for half an hour and reach the classroom just as Spanish is starting.
-
Kurt falls ill not long after starting at Dalton, and he spends a few days in bed, slipping in and out of consciousness. When he’s awake, he’s sometimes aware of Blaine’s hand on his forehead, Blaine’s voice murmuring things he can’t make out into his ear.
When he’s feeling strong enough to return to the world, he unlocks his door and sets off in the direction of his English class. The question of how Blaine managed to get in if the door was locked flits briefly across his mind, but it’s quickly driven out by the sight of Blaine himself, sitting at their usual desk and grinning at him.
“Hi, Kurt,” the teacher says, smiling. “We were just about to start. Sit down.”
“Hey,” Kurt says quietly to Blaine, as he slips into his seat. “So you know how I’ve been sick the past couple of days?”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Blaine says. He really does look contrite, Kurt notices with some amusement, as if he feels somehow personally responsible.
“Could you talk me through the classes I missed? I’ll understand if you don’t have the time, but - ”
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about catching up,” Blaine says. The teacher, Kurt is somewhat disconcerted to realise, hasn’t actually started the lesson yet, as if she’s waiting for them to finish their conversation. “All our classes were cancelled while you were sick. Snow.”
“Oh,” Kurt says, bemused. “That’s convenient.”
“Isn’t it?” Blaine agrees, cheerfully.
-
Kurt stands at the entrance to the dining hall, and there’s nowhere to sit. The wooden tables stretch away impossibly far, until they’re swallowed up by darkness in the distance, and all the seats are filled, and every person there is Wes or David. Two Davids stand up to offer him their seats (and that’s just one more thing that makes Dalton the perfect school; how often would something like that happen at McKinley?), but Kurt declines.
And then there’s a hand on his shoulder and Blaine’s voice murmuring “Eating without me?” into his ear, warm and amused, and Kurt finds himself being led to a small round table he hadn’t noticed before, off to one side. There’s a white tablecloth. There are candles. A few Weses and Davids wolf-whistle.
“Blaine,” Kurt hisses. “I can’t eat like this in front of everyone.”
“In front of who?” Blaine asks, frowning, and when Kurt looks around he sees that the hall is empty and dark: it’s just them, lit in the flickering light of the candles on the table.
It’s a lovely meal, but as it gets later the conversation runs out and Kurt starts looking around the hall, feeling warm and at ease. There’s not much to see, though: the light of the candles doesn’t seem to reach the tables any more; it’s as if they’re sitting on a tiny island of light in the middle of a pitch-black ocean. Some of the wall behind Blaine is still illuminated, but when Kurt tries to look at the painting on it he can only get the vaguest impression of a human figure; it seems blurred, somehow, and his eyes slide off it.
Their empty plates have disappeared, he notices, although he doesn’t remember anyone coming to take them away. “You must have very stealthy staff here,” he observes.
Blaine gives him a perplexed look, and then his eyes slide down to the tablecloth. “Oh, God,” he says. “I forgot about the plates.”
Kurt is confused, and he’s even more confused when he looks down at the table and the plates are there. He doesn’t know how he missed them before; it’s not as if the table has many places to hide.
“I’m sorry,” Blaine says, concealing a yawn behind his hand. “I’m just tired. It gets harder to... uh, to concentrate. You should get some sleep, too.”
It’s not until Blaine says that that Kurt realises how tired he is. It’s not exactly how a part of him had been quietly hoping this evening might end, but suddenly all he wants to do is sleep. “Okay,” he says. “Thanks.”
Blaine holds open the dining hall doors for him, and Kurt walks through into his room. He’s apparently so sleepy that he doesn’t even notice himself changing into his pyjamas, and as soon as he realises he’s already wearing them he falls into bed and shuts off.
-
Kurt wakes in the middle of the night and knows that he has to get out of here. He doesn’t even take the time to change out of his admittedly stylish pyjamas; just pushes open his door and runs straight through onto the cold tile of the entrance hall, barefoot.
Blaine is standing by the enormous front door, dressed in his uniform. He waves, looking unfairly perky for three o’clock in the morning, especially given how tired he was before. Why is he here at three in the morning, anyway? Well, at least it means Kurt will get to see him before leaving. “Hey, Kurt. What’s up?”
“I have to go,” Kurt says. “I’m sorry, Blaine, I really like it here, and I like you, but I can’t stay here.”
“Hey, hey, okay,” Blaine says, catching him by the arms. “Why do you have to go?”
He can’t articulate it. He knows there’s a reason he has to get out of here, but he can’t get it clear in his head. “I can’t stay.”
“Is someone bullying you?” Blaine asks, watching him, his head tilted to one side. “Wes? David?”
“Nobody’s bullying me.”
“Then why do you have to leave?” Blaine asks, gently.
Kurt blinks back frustrated tears. “Look, you’re trying to help, I get it, but I actually do need to get out of here now.”
“Without any shoes?”
Kurt glances down at his feet and then back up at Blaine. He can feel himself beginning to flush.
“Where are you going to go? You can’t go back to McKinley; you weren’t safe there. I saw how frightened you were.”
Kurt is frightened now; the only difference is he can’t explain why. “Please let me go.”
“I can make things better for you,” Blaine says. “I can bring Mercedes here, if you want. You’ll be happy here. I promise.”
Something about Mercedes coming to Dalton doesn’t make any sense, but Kurt can’t pin down what it is. And he does miss her. And Blaine is smiling at him and very close and it’s getting more and more difficult to think.
They’re in his bedroom. Weren’t they in the hall a moment ago? He must be imagining things.
“It’s cold outside,” Blaine says. His fingers are warm and immovable around Kurt’s wrist. “Stay here with me.”
“Okay,” Kurt breathes, and when Blaine kisses him he can’t remember why he ever considered leaving.
-
The front door is missing when he and Blaine come down for breakfast the next morning, but that’s okay; he probably wasn’t going to need it, anyway.