[fic - Glee] Strategies and Tactics, R
Title: Strategies and Tactics
Rating: R
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine
Spoilers (if any): None.
Warnings (if any): Discussion of statutory rape in the tone you would expect from the show.
Word Count: ~3,900
Summary: Apartment hunting is not a rational experience.
Author's Note:
This continues from:
Boston: Following Home | These Thousand Names for Gratitude | All the Honesty of Politics | Circles as the Dark Winds Down | The Distance Between Ohio and Boston | All the Pretty Little Horses | Languages You Don't Even Know | Fauna and Flora | Where Water Doesn't Speak | Under Glass We Are Expected to Blossom | You Were Someone Else Before We Came Here
“Two words: Ebola Reston.”
“What?”
“YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT EBOLA RESTON?”
“Kurt, what are you talking about?”
“Monkeys, Blaine. Diseased monkeys.”
Forty-five minutes and an unfortunate Google search later, Kurt lunges across their dining table, grabs Blaine's pen, and crosses Reston off their list with a flourish. In a way, Blaine's relieved, but not because of the definitely no-longer-a-threat ebola; Reston's really a lot farther out than either of them wants to be.
*
This time, they drive down to D.C. and stop in New York for an early dinner on the way. Kurt watches Blaine and Wes hug and knows Blaine feels overwhelmed by the world by the way he tucks his face into the space between Wes's neck and shoulder when they hug.
“You're like the fake ex-boyfriend who will never hurt him,” Kurt says halfway through the meal when Blaine excuses himself to the restroom.
“No, I'm like the fake ex-boyfriend who already has.”
Kurt thinks Wes seems a little smug about it.
*
“Somebody's stressed,” Kurt says once they're comfortably headed south on 95.
“Mmmmmm?”
“Mmmmmm. Yes, Blaine. What's going on?”
“I'm worried we won't find anything.”
“No you're not.”
“Okay, I'm worried we won't find something you like.”
“Ah,” Kurt says. In a way he's pleased. Blaine expecting him to be the difficult one is license.
*
“You splurged,” Kurt says, both pleased and aghast, as he looks around the lobby of their hotel, all clean lines and men in expensive suits.
Blaine adjusts his duffle on his shoulder as they go to check in while Kurt thinks they really need to invest in better luggage.
“Nah, just raided my dad's Amex points,” he says, before turning to the woman at the desk and checking in like he's had nice things and a boy to share them with his entire life.
Kurt smirks. He loves that Blaine does things like this, and yet.... “It's amazing I don't find you more offensive,” he says.
The woman at the desk smiles at them like they're unremarkable, and that makes Kurt a little bit angry.
*
In the morning, they take the train out to Maryland, where they meet a broker Blaine's secured for them on the Internet. She seems to think they're merely roommates when Blaine reminds her that they're looking for a two bedroom.
“What part of this,” Kurt hisses, gesturing to his face, “this,” gesturing to the whole of his outfit, “and this,” he says, holding up his left hand and waggling his ring finger, “does she not understand?”
“She's just trying to be polite,” Blaine says, already exhausted.
“Well, she's failing.”
*
“No,” he says, the second they walk into the first apartment.
“Kurt, you haven't even looked yet,” Blaine says, assuming Kurt's just going to object to everything this woman shows them.
“I've looked. And there's linoleum in the living room.”
“Is this one of those --”
“Utterly non-negotiable,” Kurt says.
Blaine sighs heavily. “Well, you heard him,” he says to the broker.
*
Six apartments later they reject the entire state of Maryland out of hand.
“Blaine,” Kurt says in a voice that's half gasp and half whine when they follow a different broker into a third-floor one-bedroom in Dupont sometime after lunch.
“Out of our price range,” Blaine reminds him. He wonders if he should regret agreeing to look at apartments actually in the District, because they cannot afford this, and Kurt wants.
“But it has a fireplace.”
“And no linoleum,” Blaine adds, his voice a little bit grim.
Kurt leans against him for a moment. “The light is gorgeous,” he says and wanders into the kitchen, smoothing his hands over the marble countertop there.
Blaine can tell he's in love. Kurt informs him the walls are a painted buttercup yellow.
“It's only one bedroom,” he says, trying to be the voice of reason, but it's hard when Kurt's face carries that look he reserves for touching beautiful things.
“This is supposed to be hard,” Kurt says, bouncing on his toes and his voice full of hope. “Let's do it somewhere beautiful.”
“You're normally more pragmatic than this,” Blaine says weakly.
“What part of it has a fireplace are you not getting?”
Blaine takes a deep breath. “I really think we need more space.”
*
Kurt is still talking about the Dupont apartment when they get back to the hotel. He's gesturing and decorating by unceasing monologue and so doesn't notice that Blaine is freaking out until his boyfriend grabs his hands and sits him down on the bed.
“I really want us to to choose a place that's going to make you happy. I... I think you even need to get like 60% of the vote on this because this isn't actually where you want to be, and I know this. But I think that apartment is a bad idea. And I find myself wanting to say yes to make you happy now, even though I think it's going to make us really unhappy later.”
“What don't you like about it?” Kurt asks curiously. There's so much in what Blaine's said that he could get angry at, but right now it just feels easier not to understand.
“I love it. I think it's gorgeous. I just --”
“You'd live there?”
“Yeah, I would.”
“So the problem is....” Kurt leads.
“Just not with you.”
“I don't --”
“If we're in the same room, you're eighty percent of my vision. Without my own space, I don't get anything done. And in that gorgeous apartment we can't afford, I will come to resent everything that is exquisite and impossible about you.”
“And if I insist, you'll say yes,” Kurt concludes.
“Yes.”
“And that's what you're really scared of.”
Blaine nods.
Kurt frowns. Blaine is surprised he's not yelling.
“All right,” Kurt says. “We'll just have to get luckier then. Take a shower with me?”
*
“Today was useful,” Kurt says, spreading his soapy hands across Blaine's chest.
“I hadn't realized we were going to use the shower to talk about real estate.”
“It's less stressful this way,” Kurt says, ducking his head into the spray to press a kiss to Blaine's collar bone.
Blaine makes an interrogative noise. Kurt's not wrong, but this is still bizarre.
“I hate all the complexes we looked at. All of them. I don't want to live in a complex. Or a high-rise. Or somewhere I'm supposed to like because it has ugly carpeting or a mediocre gym or a sad little playground.”
Blaine nods. It's all he can do because Kurt's hands have made their way down to his hips and keep tugging, sliding, teasing lower.
“And no linoleum in the living room,” he manages to grind out as Kurt's hands find his dick.
Kurt beams. “I knew you'd keep track of everything better like this,” he says, so, so pleased with himself.
*
“You going to sing something?” Blaine asks him in the piano bar after dinner.
“You first,” he says.
“How do you know I want to sing?”
“You always want to sing.”
Sure enough, Blaine threads his way through the small tables so he can lean across the top of the upright and talk to the guy playing. Kurt knows Blaine is asking for terrible and current pop songs by how long the conversation goes on; they're not necessarily what guys in places like this know. But eventually, they settle on something, and Kurt watches the room go from skeptical to owned in the space of sixteen bars.
Sometimes, Kurt enjoys these displays of Blaine's because they make him feel he doesn't even exist, an anonymous witness to one of his wide-scatter seductions. But sometimes, like tonight, Kurt enjoys them because they tear at him with the same loneliness that taught him to sing in the first place.
He's already making his way towards the front as Blaine finishes and graciously - too graciously - accepts all his applause.
“That was lovely, honey,” he murmurs, kissing Blaine's cheek and dismissing him.
He leans down to name his song for the pianist, reassures him that, oh no, it's just fine for him as written, and then grabs onto the mic, shooting a feral smile around the room.
“I love when he does that,” he sighs into in, over the opening phrase of the song. “So dreamy, don't you think? You know, I get to go home with that fine, fine boy every night, but when he's performing for all of you, sometimes it feels like he doesn't even know I'm alive.”
Kurt can't stop smirking then as he launches into “On My Own” then, eyes closed and every memory of longing he's ever had pouring out of him. He knows this song - awful, cliched, and favorite of Rachel Berry - will silence the raucousness Blaine brought to the room.
They will marvel at his voice and his ache, and yet still, absolutely, positively, completely remember what Blaine did too, because this is about that.
Kurt has learned that this is why he always has to go second. When he goes first, the world forgets them both.
*
“You don't really feel that way, do you?” Blaine asks as they leave the bar hand-in-hand and agree to walk the mile back to their hotel, a cool breeze stirring the heavy air.
Kurt shrugs, swinging their linked hands. “I do. I don't mind it though.”
“It seems like something a person would mind.”
Kurt shakes his head. “You're always performing. There aren't a lot of times I get to see you as you.”
“But --”
“When you're performing for other people, and it's not about me, I get to see something no one else does. I love that. And it makes good patter. Don't let it bother you.”
“I --”
“Always performing,” Kurt says, pointing a finger in his face and squeezing his hand. One day, Blaine will understand.
*
“Virginia,” Kurt says when they get out of the metro in Arlington the next morning.
“Virginia.”
“I'm already non-plussed.”
“We're really far away from the ebola,” Blaine offers.
Kurt smiles. Never let it be said his boyfriend doesn't try.
*
Blaine watches Kurt's imagination catch on the second place they see. It's in an old building and, like the Dupont place, the kitchen is painted yellow.
Sadly, it's also only one bedroom, but it's a little bigger, and the living room has an odd L-shape to it that will give them a perfect place to put the piano.
Kurt gasps when he sees the bit of fenced in garden space that would be just theirs, and Blaine thinks there's room enough for a table and chairs and maybe even a grill.
Most importantly, though, they can actually afford it, so Blaine thinks that if Kurt says this is the one he won't fight it at all.
Kurt, however, has become completely preoccupied with the closet just on the cusp of the living room. He is, at the moment standing in it and pulling at the shelves.
“Before I make one of those jokes about our people, what are you doing?” Blaine asks, approaching him carefully.
“It's only one bedroom,” Kurt says a little sadly.
“And in Virginia, I know.”
“But it's really nice.”
Blaine smiles. “It is.”
“And we can afford it.”
“We can.”
“And it meets all my requirements.”
“Yup,” Blaine smiles.
“So I was thinking, if we bought a wardrobe for the bedroom we could rip these out and build you a little mini-office. You'd have to put headphones on or whatever if I were home, because I don't think we should close you in there without proper ventilation, but... maybe?”
“Kurt Hummel are you offering to give up closet space for me and an apartment in Virginia?”
“Maybe.”
Blaine kisses him, hard.
“Is this yes?” Kurt asks.
“This is yes.”
*
They sign a one year lease, even though Kurt wants them to go for two because the temporariness of the whole thing bothers him. But Blaine murmurs that they'll renew for two after and then get the hell out when it's done, going to New York, where they have always belonged. He's promised, after all, has been promising since they were sixteen.
So Kurt nods and smiles despite his unease.
*
That night, they call Blaine's father to talk business, and Kurt grins through the entire twenty minute argument about the Amex points, because this is the sort of thing they should be arguing about and not once does Mr. Anderson say what's true: that Blaine only pulled this stunt without asking because their having an argument about it was clearly the main point.
Really, when he thinks about it, Kurt has to stifle a laugh, because people can call him passive-aggressive all they want, but he's nothing compared to the Andersons.
As he listens to them sniping at each other, Kurt sees again so clearly what he has always known: that Blaine's heart is water and reeds and so much more feminine than his own. And because no one else seems to get it - not their friends, not their fathers - Kurt thinks it must be a very hard thing for Blaine to carry sometimes.
*
They spend two more nights in D.C., Blaine's father and the Amex points be damned. On the last night, Blaine takes them to sit on the back of the Lincoln Memorial.
“See that,” Blaine says, pointing out into the dark at some lights across the river.
“Yeah?”
“That's Arlington Cemetery.”
Kurt makes a small noise.
“What?” Blaine asks.
“All these monuments. I find it cold.”
“This will sound terrible,” Blaine says sitting down. “But I think that's why I like it.”
“Explain,” Kurt says.
“My bullshit feels as small as it is here. It helps. It's going to help.”
“Please don't pin the work you need to do on this place,” Kurt says, thinking of Shanghai.
“No. I know. But I think I can here.”
Kurt smiles at him, small and secret and so in love. “I'm glad you feel good about it.”
“I hope you don't feel terrible about it,” Blaine says.
“I don't. I'm a little sad, but that means something different for me than it does for you.”
“I don't understand.”
“I know,” Kurt says simply. “That's okay. One day you will.”
Blaine reaches for Kurt's hand and sighs, thinking about the drive back to what's still home for now.
“Rachel tomorrow?” he asks.
Kurt nods. “Of course.”
*
Rachel insists they meet her in the north end of the park for a picnic. It takes forever for them to find a parking spot and another bit of forever for them to find her, but she has a blanket spread out, a fashionable picnic basket she got at a second-hand shop and lots of food in little plastic tubs just waiting for them.
“So did you find a place?” she asks.
“Yeah,” Blaine says, grinning, as he flops down beside her.
“I'm glad. I was hoping this would be victory potato salad rather than consolation-prize potato salad.”
“Rachel?” Kurt asks.
“Yes?”
“Does potato salad need this particular application of adjectives?”
“I made it with fat-free nayonaise,” she offers.
Kurt smiles, finally sitting down on the other side of her from Blaine. “But I do love you and your not entirely misguided ways,” he says grabbing the container out of her hands.
Blaine rolls his eyes.
*
It takes Kurt the better part of a month and several weird phone conversations with Blaine's father that Blaine isn't privy to, but eventually he finds a tenant for their Boston place at three-hundred a month more than they've agreed to pay Mr. Anderson towards the mortgage, which means they can throw that towards their rent in D.C.
*
“I can't decide if this is the best plan you've ever had, or the worst,” Blaine says, when Kurt explains that he's bribing Finn and Puck to help them move.
“Look, if we could afford professional movers, I'd be all over that. But we can't, they need the cash, I found them totally cheap airfare out here, and they'll still respect us in the morning.”
Blaine nearly chokes with unexpected laughter, and Kurt shrugs his shoulders in a way that's entirely sexy and calculated in response.
*
Three weeks later, somewhere around hour five of the drive to his and Kurt's new home, Blaine considers the possibility that he may be about to kill Noah Puckerman. They're in the car; Kurt and Finn have the rental truck (because, as Kurt wisely pointed out, letting Finn and Puck handle the truck alone would probably lead to an incident involving state troopers and/or the FBI), and there's really only so much small talk Blaine can make about anyone's sex life.
“Seriously, dude,” Puck is saying, kicking a foot up onto the dash in a way that forces Blaine to glare at him. “Chicks are always reading books on sex tips for straight women from gay men. We both have dicks, why can't that work the other way?”
Blaine takes a long steadying breath. “Are you, pool boy to the desperate housewives of Lima, Ohio, seriously asking me for advice on the best ways to get your dick wet?” Blaine asks, being crass both because he's annoyed and to see how it feels. He never speaks like this.
Puck laughs in approval. “Kurt told you about that, huh?”
“Yes. In the context of statutory rape.”
“Oh no man, I was totally into it.”
“Seriously?” Blaine asks.
“What, like you don't find older guys hot?”
“Sure. But I don't find them being into me hot. At least not when I was in high school and they were two or three times my age. Believe me, Kurt gets enough really inappropriate attention that I'm not exactly amused by this one.”
“What do you mean?” Puck asks sobering and finally putting his foot back on the floor.
“He looks young. He's a certain sort of pretty. We'll go out sometimes, and I'll see a guy looking at him like he'd love to have him pretend he was fourteen. Or younger.”
“Age play!” Puck says. “That's hot.”
Blaine grits his teeth and grips the steering wheel until his knuckles go white.
*
“So how's this D.C. thing for you, really?” Finn asks.
“Fine. The apartment's really great.”
“Yeah, but, D.C.?” he says, leading.
“Did my dad ask you to talk to me about this?”
“Maybe.”
Kurt stops himself from slamming the heel of his hand into the steering wheel; the truck is hard enough to control as it is without him being distracted and angry.
“Look, Finn, I know this may be hard for you to understand since the only relationship status you're capable of is on-again, off-again -”
“Hey, that thing with Mercedes was just - “
“Whatever. Did it ever occur to you I don't want to know who's using who there?”
“No.”
“Anyway, Blaine and I are together. I go where he goes and he goes where I go, and right now this is where we need to be. Am I thrilled about that? No. And if Rachel gets to Broadway before me you may need to stage some sort of intervention, but this is how people make their way together. And sometimes it sucks. But I'm where I want to be. Other than with you in this truck.”
“You guys are just so young.”
“We're the same age, Finn.”
“I know, but....”
Kurt shakes his head and laughs. “Wait, do you somehow think we didn't get up to irresponsible shit in college just because we were together?”
“Well, yeah?”
“Oh god. No, Finn,” Kurt says laughing delightedly. “No. We have stories that would make you blanch.”
*
The closer they get to finishing the move, the more miserable Kurt becomes. Everything may be in the apartment, but nothing is put together, they've yet to return the truck, and they still have to keep Puck and Finn entertained.
“Somehow,” Kurt says, as he and Blaine sit on the bedroom floor trying to reassemble their bed, “it seems entirely unfair that Puck is the first person who gets to use our new shower.”
Blaine shrugs. “He did stink the most.”
“How was the drive?”
“Don't even ask. Yours?”
Kurt shrugs. “He's my brother, you know?”
“That good, huh?”
“Occasionally.”
“So, I'm wondering,” Blaine says sighing and then lying back on the floor in the space defined by their still skeletal bed frame, “do I look selfish if I try to find them a hotel for tonight so we can have a little alone time?”
“You are delusional,” Kurt says, lying down next to him. “I'm never moving again.”
“What about New York?” Blaine says, purposefully misunderstanding as he cards his fingers through Kurt's hair.
“Ask me next week.”
*
Two days later, after ninety percent of their boxes are unpacked and Puck and Finn have headed back to Ohio, Blaine comes back from handling some paperwork at school to find Kurt standing on a chair in the closet ripping out the last of the shelves.
“Guess you want me to take you wardrobe shopping tomorrow, huh?”
“That would be nice,” Kurt says, before yanking on the final shelf, and, with a little cry of victory, letting it drop to the floor.
He dusts his hands off on each other, before placing them on his hips and posing. “We also need to look at paint chips, deck furniture and maybe a grill?”
Blaine laughs. Kurt's flirty, very much not-a-girl, housewife thing, delights him more than it probably should.
“Would you like me to keep admiring you perched there in the closet or would you like me to take you to bed now?” Blaine asks.
Kurt looks startled for a moment, like he's somehow forgotten what sex is in the move. “Oh,” he says a little breathlessly, holding his hand out for Blaine to take as he steps down from the chair.
“I'll take that as a yes?”
Kurt smiles and twists, leading Blaine back towards their bedroom. “Just take,” he says with a breathless smile. “Just take.”
Next: The Many Shades of Sugar
Rating: R
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine
Spoilers (if any): None.
Warnings (if any): Discussion of statutory rape in the tone you would expect from the show.
Word Count: ~3,900
Summary: Apartment hunting is not a rational experience.
Author's Note:
This continues from:
Boston: Following Home | These Thousand Names for Gratitude | All the Honesty of Politics | Circles as the Dark Winds Down | The Distance Between Ohio and Boston | All the Pretty Little Horses | Languages You Don't Even Know | Fauna and Flora | Where Water Doesn't Speak | Under Glass We Are Expected to Blossom | You Were Someone Else Before We Came Here
“Two words: Ebola Reston.”
“What?”
“YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT EBOLA RESTON?”
“Kurt, what are you talking about?”
“Monkeys, Blaine. Diseased monkeys.”
Forty-five minutes and an unfortunate Google search later, Kurt lunges across their dining table, grabs Blaine's pen, and crosses Reston off their list with a flourish. In a way, Blaine's relieved, but not because of the definitely no-longer-a-threat ebola; Reston's really a lot farther out than either of them wants to be.
*
This time, they drive down to D.C. and stop in New York for an early dinner on the way. Kurt watches Blaine and Wes hug and knows Blaine feels overwhelmed by the world by the way he tucks his face into the space between Wes's neck and shoulder when they hug.
“You're like the fake ex-boyfriend who will never hurt him,” Kurt says halfway through the meal when Blaine excuses himself to the restroom.
“No, I'm like the fake ex-boyfriend who already has.”
Kurt thinks Wes seems a little smug about it.
*
“Somebody's stressed,” Kurt says once they're comfortably headed south on 95.
“Mmmmmm?”
“Mmmmmm. Yes, Blaine. What's going on?”
“I'm worried we won't find anything.”
“No you're not.”
“Okay, I'm worried we won't find something you like.”
“Ah,” Kurt says. In a way he's pleased. Blaine expecting him to be the difficult one is license.
*
“You splurged,” Kurt says, both pleased and aghast, as he looks around the lobby of their hotel, all clean lines and men in expensive suits.
Blaine adjusts his duffle on his shoulder as they go to check in while Kurt thinks they really need to invest in better luggage.
“Nah, just raided my dad's Amex points,” he says, before turning to the woman at the desk and checking in like he's had nice things and a boy to share them with his entire life.
Kurt smirks. He loves that Blaine does things like this, and yet.... “It's amazing I don't find you more offensive,” he says.
The woman at the desk smiles at them like they're unremarkable, and that makes Kurt a little bit angry.
*
In the morning, they take the train out to Maryland, where they meet a broker Blaine's secured for them on the Internet. She seems to think they're merely roommates when Blaine reminds her that they're looking for a two bedroom.
“What part of this,” Kurt hisses, gesturing to his face, “this,” gesturing to the whole of his outfit, “and this,” he says, holding up his left hand and waggling his ring finger, “does she not understand?”
“She's just trying to be polite,” Blaine says, already exhausted.
“Well, she's failing.”
*
“No,” he says, the second they walk into the first apartment.
“Kurt, you haven't even looked yet,” Blaine says, assuming Kurt's just going to object to everything this woman shows them.
“I've looked. And there's linoleum in the living room.”
“Is this one of those --”
“Utterly non-negotiable,” Kurt says.
Blaine sighs heavily. “Well, you heard him,” he says to the broker.
*
Six apartments later they reject the entire state of Maryland out of hand.
“Blaine,” Kurt says in a voice that's half gasp and half whine when they follow a different broker into a third-floor one-bedroom in Dupont sometime after lunch.
“Out of our price range,” Blaine reminds him. He wonders if he should regret agreeing to look at apartments actually in the District, because they cannot afford this, and Kurt wants.
“But it has a fireplace.”
“And no linoleum,” Blaine adds, his voice a little bit grim.
Kurt leans against him for a moment. “The light is gorgeous,” he says and wanders into the kitchen, smoothing his hands over the marble countertop there.
Blaine can tell he's in love. Kurt informs him the walls are a painted buttercup yellow.
“It's only one bedroom,” he says, trying to be the voice of reason, but it's hard when Kurt's face carries that look he reserves for touching beautiful things.
“This is supposed to be hard,” Kurt says, bouncing on his toes and his voice full of hope. “Let's do it somewhere beautiful.”
“You're normally more pragmatic than this,” Blaine says weakly.
“What part of it has a fireplace are you not getting?”
Blaine takes a deep breath. “I really think we need more space.”
*
Kurt is still talking about the Dupont apartment when they get back to the hotel. He's gesturing and decorating by unceasing monologue and so doesn't notice that Blaine is freaking out until his boyfriend grabs his hands and sits him down on the bed.
“I really want us to to choose a place that's going to make you happy. I... I think you even need to get like 60% of the vote on this because this isn't actually where you want to be, and I know this. But I think that apartment is a bad idea. And I find myself wanting to say yes to make you happy now, even though I think it's going to make us really unhappy later.”
“What don't you like about it?” Kurt asks curiously. There's so much in what Blaine's said that he could get angry at, but right now it just feels easier not to understand.
“I love it. I think it's gorgeous. I just --”
“You'd live there?”
“Yeah, I would.”
“So the problem is....” Kurt leads.
“Just not with you.”
“I don't --”
“If we're in the same room, you're eighty percent of my vision. Without my own space, I don't get anything done. And in that gorgeous apartment we can't afford, I will come to resent everything that is exquisite and impossible about you.”
“And if I insist, you'll say yes,” Kurt concludes.
“Yes.”
“And that's what you're really scared of.”
Blaine nods.
Kurt frowns. Blaine is surprised he's not yelling.
“All right,” Kurt says. “We'll just have to get luckier then. Take a shower with me?”
*
“Today was useful,” Kurt says, spreading his soapy hands across Blaine's chest.
“I hadn't realized we were going to use the shower to talk about real estate.”
“It's less stressful this way,” Kurt says, ducking his head into the spray to press a kiss to Blaine's collar bone.
Blaine makes an interrogative noise. Kurt's not wrong, but this is still bizarre.
“I hate all the complexes we looked at. All of them. I don't want to live in a complex. Or a high-rise. Or somewhere I'm supposed to like because it has ugly carpeting or a mediocre gym or a sad little playground.”
Blaine nods. It's all he can do because Kurt's hands have made their way down to his hips and keep tugging, sliding, teasing lower.
“And no linoleum in the living room,” he manages to grind out as Kurt's hands find his dick.
Kurt beams. “I knew you'd keep track of everything better like this,” he says, so, so pleased with himself.
*
“You going to sing something?” Blaine asks him in the piano bar after dinner.
“You first,” he says.
“How do you know I want to sing?”
“You always want to sing.”
Sure enough, Blaine threads his way through the small tables so he can lean across the top of the upright and talk to the guy playing. Kurt knows Blaine is asking for terrible and current pop songs by how long the conversation goes on; they're not necessarily what guys in places like this know. But eventually, they settle on something, and Kurt watches the room go from skeptical to owned in the space of sixteen bars.
Sometimes, Kurt enjoys these displays of Blaine's because they make him feel he doesn't even exist, an anonymous witness to one of his wide-scatter seductions. But sometimes, like tonight, Kurt enjoys them because they tear at him with the same loneliness that taught him to sing in the first place.
He's already making his way towards the front as Blaine finishes and graciously - too graciously - accepts all his applause.
“That was lovely, honey,” he murmurs, kissing Blaine's cheek and dismissing him.
He leans down to name his song for the pianist, reassures him that, oh no, it's just fine for him as written, and then grabs onto the mic, shooting a feral smile around the room.
“I love when he does that,” he sighs into in, over the opening phrase of the song. “So dreamy, don't you think? You know, I get to go home with that fine, fine boy every night, but when he's performing for all of you, sometimes it feels like he doesn't even know I'm alive.”
Kurt can't stop smirking then as he launches into “On My Own” then, eyes closed and every memory of longing he's ever had pouring out of him. He knows this song - awful, cliched, and favorite of Rachel Berry - will silence the raucousness Blaine brought to the room.
They will marvel at his voice and his ache, and yet still, absolutely, positively, completely remember what Blaine did too, because this is about that.
Kurt has learned that this is why he always has to go second. When he goes first, the world forgets them both.
*
“You don't really feel that way, do you?” Blaine asks as they leave the bar hand-in-hand and agree to walk the mile back to their hotel, a cool breeze stirring the heavy air.
Kurt shrugs, swinging their linked hands. “I do. I don't mind it though.”
“It seems like something a person would mind.”
Kurt shakes his head. “You're always performing. There aren't a lot of times I get to see you as you.”
“But --”
“When you're performing for other people, and it's not about me, I get to see something no one else does. I love that. And it makes good patter. Don't let it bother you.”
“I --”
“Always performing,” Kurt says, pointing a finger in his face and squeezing his hand. One day, Blaine will understand.
*
“Virginia,” Kurt says when they get out of the metro in Arlington the next morning.
“Virginia.”
“I'm already non-plussed.”
“We're really far away from the ebola,” Blaine offers.
Kurt smiles. Never let it be said his boyfriend doesn't try.
*
Blaine watches Kurt's imagination catch on the second place they see. It's in an old building and, like the Dupont place, the kitchen is painted yellow.
Sadly, it's also only one bedroom, but it's a little bigger, and the living room has an odd L-shape to it that will give them a perfect place to put the piano.
Kurt gasps when he sees the bit of fenced in garden space that would be just theirs, and Blaine thinks there's room enough for a table and chairs and maybe even a grill.
Most importantly, though, they can actually afford it, so Blaine thinks that if Kurt says this is the one he won't fight it at all.
Kurt, however, has become completely preoccupied with the closet just on the cusp of the living room. He is, at the moment standing in it and pulling at the shelves.
“Before I make one of those jokes about our people, what are you doing?” Blaine asks, approaching him carefully.
“It's only one bedroom,” Kurt says a little sadly.
“And in Virginia, I know.”
“But it's really nice.”
Blaine smiles. “It is.”
“And we can afford it.”
“We can.”
“And it meets all my requirements.”
“Yup,” Blaine smiles.
“So I was thinking, if we bought a wardrobe for the bedroom we could rip these out and build you a little mini-office. You'd have to put headphones on or whatever if I were home, because I don't think we should close you in there without proper ventilation, but... maybe?”
“Kurt Hummel are you offering to give up closet space for me and an apartment in Virginia?”
“Maybe.”
Blaine kisses him, hard.
“Is this yes?” Kurt asks.
“This is yes.”
*
They sign a one year lease, even though Kurt wants them to go for two because the temporariness of the whole thing bothers him. But Blaine murmurs that they'll renew for two after and then get the hell out when it's done, going to New York, where they have always belonged. He's promised, after all, has been promising since they were sixteen.
So Kurt nods and smiles despite his unease.
*
That night, they call Blaine's father to talk business, and Kurt grins through the entire twenty minute argument about the Amex points, because this is the sort of thing they should be arguing about and not once does Mr. Anderson say what's true: that Blaine only pulled this stunt without asking because their having an argument about it was clearly the main point.
Really, when he thinks about it, Kurt has to stifle a laugh, because people can call him passive-aggressive all they want, but he's nothing compared to the Andersons.
As he listens to them sniping at each other, Kurt sees again so clearly what he has always known: that Blaine's heart is water and reeds and so much more feminine than his own. And because no one else seems to get it - not their friends, not their fathers - Kurt thinks it must be a very hard thing for Blaine to carry sometimes.
*
They spend two more nights in D.C., Blaine's father and the Amex points be damned. On the last night, Blaine takes them to sit on the back of the Lincoln Memorial.
“See that,” Blaine says, pointing out into the dark at some lights across the river.
“Yeah?”
“That's Arlington Cemetery.”
Kurt makes a small noise.
“What?” Blaine asks.
“All these monuments. I find it cold.”
“This will sound terrible,” Blaine says sitting down. “But I think that's why I like it.”
“Explain,” Kurt says.
“My bullshit feels as small as it is here. It helps. It's going to help.”
“Please don't pin the work you need to do on this place,” Kurt says, thinking of Shanghai.
“No. I know. But I think I can here.”
Kurt smiles at him, small and secret and so in love. “I'm glad you feel good about it.”
“I hope you don't feel terrible about it,” Blaine says.
“I don't. I'm a little sad, but that means something different for me than it does for you.”
“I don't understand.”
“I know,” Kurt says simply. “That's okay. One day you will.”
Blaine reaches for Kurt's hand and sighs, thinking about the drive back to what's still home for now.
“Rachel tomorrow?” he asks.
Kurt nods. “Of course.”
*
Rachel insists they meet her in the north end of the park for a picnic. It takes forever for them to find a parking spot and another bit of forever for them to find her, but she has a blanket spread out, a fashionable picnic basket she got at a second-hand shop and lots of food in little plastic tubs just waiting for them.
“So did you find a place?” she asks.
“Yeah,” Blaine says, grinning, as he flops down beside her.
“I'm glad. I was hoping this would be victory potato salad rather than consolation-prize potato salad.”
“Rachel?” Kurt asks.
“Yes?”
“Does potato salad need this particular application of adjectives?”
“I made it with fat-free nayonaise,” she offers.
Kurt smiles, finally sitting down on the other side of her from Blaine. “But I do love you and your not entirely misguided ways,” he says grabbing the container out of her hands.
Blaine rolls his eyes.
*
It takes Kurt the better part of a month and several weird phone conversations with Blaine's father that Blaine isn't privy to, but eventually he finds a tenant for their Boston place at three-hundred a month more than they've agreed to pay Mr. Anderson towards the mortgage, which means they can throw that towards their rent in D.C.
*
“I can't decide if this is the best plan you've ever had, or the worst,” Blaine says, when Kurt explains that he's bribing Finn and Puck to help them move.
“Look, if we could afford professional movers, I'd be all over that. But we can't, they need the cash, I found them totally cheap airfare out here, and they'll still respect us in the morning.”
Blaine nearly chokes with unexpected laughter, and Kurt shrugs his shoulders in a way that's entirely sexy and calculated in response.
*
Three weeks later, somewhere around hour five of the drive to his and Kurt's new home, Blaine considers the possibility that he may be about to kill Noah Puckerman. They're in the car; Kurt and Finn have the rental truck (because, as Kurt wisely pointed out, letting Finn and Puck handle the truck alone would probably lead to an incident involving state troopers and/or the FBI), and there's really only so much small talk Blaine can make about anyone's sex life.
“Seriously, dude,” Puck is saying, kicking a foot up onto the dash in a way that forces Blaine to glare at him. “Chicks are always reading books on sex tips for straight women from gay men. We both have dicks, why can't that work the other way?”
Blaine takes a long steadying breath. “Are you, pool boy to the desperate housewives of Lima, Ohio, seriously asking me for advice on the best ways to get your dick wet?” Blaine asks, being crass both because he's annoyed and to see how it feels. He never speaks like this.
Puck laughs in approval. “Kurt told you about that, huh?”
“Yes. In the context of statutory rape.”
“Oh no man, I was totally into it.”
“Seriously?” Blaine asks.
“What, like you don't find older guys hot?”
“Sure. But I don't find them being into me hot. At least not when I was in high school and they were two or three times my age. Believe me, Kurt gets enough really inappropriate attention that I'm not exactly amused by this one.”
“What do you mean?” Puck asks sobering and finally putting his foot back on the floor.
“He looks young. He's a certain sort of pretty. We'll go out sometimes, and I'll see a guy looking at him like he'd love to have him pretend he was fourteen. Or younger.”
“Age play!” Puck says. “That's hot.”
Blaine grits his teeth and grips the steering wheel until his knuckles go white.
*
“So how's this D.C. thing for you, really?” Finn asks.
“Fine. The apartment's really great.”
“Yeah, but, D.C.?” he says, leading.
“Did my dad ask you to talk to me about this?”
“Maybe.”
Kurt stops himself from slamming the heel of his hand into the steering wheel; the truck is hard enough to control as it is without him being distracted and angry.
“Look, Finn, I know this may be hard for you to understand since the only relationship status you're capable of is on-again, off-again -”
“Hey, that thing with Mercedes was just - “
“Whatever. Did it ever occur to you I don't want to know who's using who there?”
“No.”
“Anyway, Blaine and I are together. I go where he goes and he goes where I go, and right now this is where we need to be. Am I thrilled about that? No. And if Rachel gets to Broadway before me you may need to stage some sort of intervention, but this is how people make their way together. And sometimes it sucks. But I'm where I want to be. Other than with you in this truck.”
“You guys are just so young.”
“We're the same age, Finn.”
“I know, but....”
Kurt shakes his head and laughs. “Wait, do you somehow think we didn't get up to irresponsible shit in college just because we were together?”
“Well, yeah?”
“Oh god. No, Finn,” Kurt says laughing delightedly. “No. We have stories that would make you blanch.”
*
The closer they get to finishing the move, the more miserable Kurt becomes. Everything may be in the apartment, but nothing is put together, they've yet to return the truck, and they still have to keep Puck and Finn entertained.
“Somehow,” Kurt says, as he and Blaine sit on the bedroom floor trying to reassemble their bed, “it seems entirely unfair that Puck is the first person who gets to use our new shower.”
Blaine shrugs. “He did stink the most.”
“How was the drive?”
“Don't even ask. Yours?”
Kurt shrugs. “He's my brother, you know?”
“That good, huh?”
“Occasionally.”
“So, I'm wondering,” Blaine says sighing and then lying back on the floor in the space defined by their still skeletal bed frame, “do I look selfish if I try to find them a hotel for tonight so we can have a little alone time?”
“You are delusional,” Kurt says, lying down next to him. “I'm never moving again.”
“What about New York?” Blaine says, purposefully misunderstanding as he cards his fingers through Kurt's hair.
“Ask me next week.”
*
Two days later, after ninety percent of their boxes are unpacked and Puck and Finn have headed back to Ohio, Blaine comes back from handling some paperwork at school to find Kurt standing on a chair in the closet ripping out the last of the shelves.
“Guess you want me to take you wardrobe shopping tomorrow, huh?”
“That would be nice,” Kurt says, before yanking on the final shelf, and, with a little cry of victory, letting it drop to the floor.
He dusts his hands off on each other, before placing them on his hips and posing. “We also need to look at paint chips, deck furniture and maybe a grill?”
Blaine laughs. Kurt's flirty, very much not-a-girl, housewife thing, delights him more than it probably should.
“Would you like me to keep admiring you perched there in the closet or would you like me to take you to bed now?” Blaine asks.
Kurt looks startled for a moment, like he's somehow forgotten what sex is in the move. “Oh,” he says a little breathlessly, holding his hand out for Blaine to take as he steps down from the chair.
“I'll take that as a yes?”
Kurt smiles and twists, leading Blaine back towards their bedroom. “Just take,” he says with a breathless smile. “Just take.”
Next: The Many Shades of Sugar