Fic: Hail to Whatever You Found in the Sunlight That Surrounds You 2/12
Title: Hail to Whatever You Found in the Sunlight That Surrounds You
Author: water_nix
Artist: tortugax
Word Count: 30 400
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Blaine/Kurt, Cooper, Mr. & Mrs. Anderson, Burt/Carole, minor OCs
Warnings: homophobia, mention of gaybashing and bullying, underage drinking
Summary: On the third of August in Blaine Anderson's ninth year, something momentous happens: he sees a boy crying on the beach and decides to do something about it. What he gets in return is a best friend, a confidant, an ally to help him through the ups and downs. They spend one month together every summer. One perfect month until they are old enough to escape together. Eleven Augusts and the letters in between.
Ten - August 2004: The Summer When They Capture the Flag
Blaine has been pacing the boardwalk in front of the Tinsey's house for forty-five minutes. Kurt is arriving today - was supposed to be arriving half an hour ago. When he finally sees a car loop around the crescent and back into their driveway at the fifty-two minute mark, he has to remind himself to stay calm. Kurt's family haven't seen him in ages, too. It wouldn't be fair for Blaine to go and steal him away as soon as he gets there.
But Kurt is soon running towards him anyway. “Blaine! Blaine!”
Blaine runs to meet him halfway. They stop when they've reached each other, both panting and grinning. “I missed you!” Blaine says and Kurt's cheeks colour.
“You too.” Kurt looks behind him to where a few other kids around their age have come out to greet him. He gives them an appraising look before turning back towards Blaine and leaning in. “I'll tell you a secret - I only came back this summer to see you.” He leans away from Blaine again and Blaine feels a little bit lonely. They both give Kurt's cousins one backward glance before linking arms and heading for the beach.
~*~
There are more kids at the beach this summer. Whenever Blaine and Kurt try to wade in the surf or catch crabs or poke the dead jelly fish back into the waves to see if they will come back to life, there are always kids trying to coax them into this or that game. They play Frisbee and volleyball and Kick the Can a few times. They're even convinced to play an increasingly violent game of Red Rover that ends in Kurt with a bloody lip and his older cousin, Daniel, calling him a sissy and telling him to go be a girl somewhere else. A tall girl with freckles and long, windblown hair yells that she doesn't cry over split lips and it quickly results in a tussle - the new kids versus the yearlies.
Blaine leads Kurt away, dabbing his lip clean with his hanky, glaring at them from over his shoulder.
The day after the Red Rover incident they avoid the beach and the gaggle of obnoxious kids that assemble there. Blaine's house is their new refuge, nice and quiet and no one calling them names or breaking out in fights over nothing. Blaine likes that it's quiet, mostly because it means his father is at home in Boston for work and he's alone with his mom, but sometimes the silence gets to him and he finds himself wishing for Cooper. But Cooper is far away now - after being in New York for a few months he had met a girl and run away to California.
Blaine's mom has been working on recipes for a new cook book, which Blaine mostly loves. He gets to sample everything she makes, but sometimes she gets what she calls “blocks” and it puts her in a bad mood for days. Today she is making some sort of dessert pastries and she brings Blaine and Kurt an entire plate of them to try.
“I like your mom,” Kurt says once she is gone.
Blaine feels almost guilty, because he does have a really great mom. But he knows Kurt isn't mad about it. And Kurt has one thing he doesn't, too: a great dad. “Can I tell you a secret?” Blaine asks in a whisper.
Kurt nods very seriously and leans in towards Blaine, his berry pastry in the air near his mouth.
“She's the only person in my whole family who I do. Like, I mean. My brother Cooper is mean and my dad... well, most of the time he scares me.”
Kurt nods again, his face full of empathy. “I don't like most of my family either. Well, you've met my cousins...” He leaves it hanging there because, yeah, Blaine has met them. The ones he's spent time with are not fun to be around in the slightest.
~*~
That night when Blaine is in bed reading a book, his mother comes in and sits on the edge of his mattress.
“Blaine? Can I talk to you about something, sweetheart?”
Blaine closes his book and sets it to the side. She looks serious. Her eyes are sad.
“I heard you talking with Kurt today. I didn't mean to... but I did. And what you said -”
Blaine sits up, back straight. He feels panic bubbling in his belly. “Mama, I didn't -”
“It's okay, Blaine. I'm not mad at you, I promise. It's just... what you said, about Dad... Blaine, has he ever given you any reason to be afraid of him?”
There are tears in his mother's eyes now and Blaine feels a lump forming in his throat and prickling at the backs of his eyes. He gnaws on his bottom lip and watches her for a moment, worried that if he opens his mouth to respond he's going to start crying. He shakes his head instead.
“Baby, you need to tell me, okay? Please.”
“No,” Blaine manages. “He's just... he's so angry at me all the time. I'm not even bad. I don't think he likes me.” His voice finally cracks and one lone tear escapes his eye and tumbles onto his cheek. His mother reaches out and wipes it away.
“Oh, honey, of course he loves you.”
“But he doesn't like me. I'm old enough to know that isn't the same thing, Mama.”
His mother shakes her head. “He's just stressed from work. It isn't your fault. I'm going to talk to him, okay?”
Blaine bugs out his eyes and begins shaking his head in protest. “I won't tell him what you said. I promise.”
Blaine looks down at his bedspread and picks at a loose thread, avoiding her gaze. He can feel her still watching him, waiting for more. There is more, of course. So much more. He could let it spill out of him for days if he really wanted to. He doesn't. He feels like he hasn't given her quite what she wants, however, and Blaine hates to disappoint anyone, especially her. “Cooper says... Cooper says I was an accident.”
“Sweetie, just because you were unplanned doesn't mean you were unwanted. Okay?” Her thin fingers reach out and take hold of Blaine's chin and she turns his face up so they are looking each other in the eye. “You were a surprise, Blaine. Not an accident. And surprises are my favourite thing in the world.”
“Mine too.”
She smiles and rubs a thumb across his cheek, wiping away any remaining tear tracks. “And I'll tell you a little secret - Cooper was a surprise, too. And a much more difficult one, seeing as your father and I had only just finished college and didn't even have jobs yet. You were an easier surprise, in every single way.”
Blaine laughs a little and she pats him on the leg before getting up and pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “I love you, my baby. And you can always talk to me about anything, all right?”
“I will, Mama. I love you, too.”
~*~
The next week, Blaine's mom reaches one of her “blocks”. One morning at breakfast she gives Blaine money to buy lunch for both him and Kurt at the boardwalk diner and sends him on his way with strict instructions to leave her to her work.
They spend the morning trying to dodge the ever-growing group of hooligan children. They are accosted anyway as they are leaving the diner, still clutching the milkshakes the nice waitress transferred into paper cups so they could take them to go.
The leader of the rabble - a vicious girl named Victoria - tells them they are organizing an epic game of Capture the Flag and they need to join in. Her younger brother, Todd, coaxes while she stands by with a smirk, her beady little eyes taunting them.
Blaine wants to tell them to go away and leave him and Kurt alone. He wants to say something far, far worse. Something that Cooper would punch him in the arm until he repeated over and over in summers gone by. But Cooper isn't there to force it out of him, and Blaine hates using such words. He glances over at Kurt who raises one eyebrow and shakes his head minutely.
“No thanks,” Blaine says. He is met with jeers and name calling and why nots. Kurt looks upset as two of his cousins join in. Apparently losing one's mother only affords a single summer of sympathy. Blaine gives them a dirty look. “I said no, thank you,” he repeats. “We don't want to play.”
“Why not?” Todd asks, his lip curled in an ugly sneer.
“Because you're -” Come on, Squirt, he can hear Cooper cajoling in his mind. Say it. You know you want to. Mom's not here to yell at you. Say it! “...uncivilized,” he finishes and the Cooper is his mind scoffs in disappointment.
“Oooh! What'd he call us?” the real boys in front of him taunt.
“Uncircumcised!” someone shouts from the back of the group and everyone laughs.
“Fancy words, Anderson,” Kurt's cousin Daniel says. “Sorry if we're not impressed.”
“Shut up,” Kurt tells him and he gives Kurt the finger.
“We don't want you two playing anyway,” Todd says. “You act like stupid girls and would probably go home crying to your mommy.”
Victoria takes offence to this and punches her brother in the gut.
“Geez, Vic!” he exclaims, bent over and holding his stomach. “I meant stupid girls. Not awesome ones like you.”
She is appeased and they shuffle away with a parting call of, “see you around, babies!”
An hour later Kurt spots a red plastic flag poking out of an outcropping of rock. An uncharacteristically evil grin spreads across his face and he looks around for a moment before scrabbling up the jagged stone and pulling it out. “I guess we win,” he says, and tosses it into the water.
~*~
The In-Between - Year Two: Assorted letters and a recipe for scones.
Dear Blaine,
I nearly destroyed our kitchen. Do you think your mom would teach me how to make a soufflé? My dad was really mad. But after we went out for burgers and he took me to a bookstore to buy some cookbooks. Guess he knows I'm getting tired of eating the same five things every week with pizza and the occasional Chinese food on the weekends. I bought one of your mom's cookbooks. I didn't know she used to be a chef. I would love to go to chef school. Does she have the hat? I want the hat. Maybe we could have a class in pastries too, because I tried that and it's really hard but not nearly as messy. I guess I'll stick to easier stuff until I'm instructed by a professional. I did make a really good hollandaise sauce on Sunday morning though. And really good eggs. Dad was impressed. Too bad I choked the next time I tried to cook for him. Soufflés are hard.
I miss you. My friend Olivia moved away during the summer and most of the kids in my class are jerks. I wish we lived in the same place. At least the same state!
I should go do my math homework I guess. My worst subject. Write back to me soon!
Kurt
~*~
Dear Kurt,
Do you know what I wish? That you could come to my birthday party. We're going to some laser tag game place, even though what I really wanted was to go to the roller rink. Cooper had a party with laser tag once and my dad says the boys all had fun. Why can't they have fun at the roller rink instead? They have karaoke and light shows and it looks like there's glitter in the air but it's not actually real. So it doesn't make the floor slippery or whatever. Also I invited girls too and he asked me why. Because they're my friends? He seems to think they won't like the laser tag but my friend Jessica is the best at laser tag in my whole class. My dad is so weird sometimes.
He keeps trying to spend time with me now because my mom told him he should. It's not even fun. Except we went to a football game together. It would have been better if some of his work friends hadn't come with us. Mostly I was bored but the hotdogs were good. The game was okay too I guess. He says now that it's basketball season we should go to some college games and watch March Madness or something on TV. I don't even like basketball. What's March Madness? I was going to ask him but I didn't want him to look at me all weird like he does when I don't understand something.
Sometimes I think I liked it better when he ignored me. Mostly I feel like he's looking for a reason to get mad.
Mom wrote out her special recipe for cinnamon scones just for you. She said to add an extra two tablespoons of sugar if you want them sweeter. And also good luck.
I really wish that you could come to my party. If I could have a party with only me and you I would choose it over a party with every other person in the world any day. I wish my birthday was in August instead of March.
From,
Blaine
*
Ingredients
Instructions
~*~*~
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Author: water_nix
Artist: tortugax
Word Count: 30 400
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Blaine/Kurt, Cooper, Mr. & Mrs. Anderson, Burt/Carole, minor OCs
Warnings: homophobia, mention of gaybashing and bullying, underage drinking
Summary: On the third of August in Blaine Anderson's ninth year, something momentous happens: he sees a boy crying on the beach and decides to do something about it. What he gets in return is a best friend, a confidant, an ally to help him through the ups and downs. They spend one month together every summer. One perfect month until they are old enough to escape together. Eleven Augusts and the letters in between.
Ten - August 2004: The Summer When They Capture the Flag
Blaine has been pacing the boardwalk in front of the Tinsey's house for forty-five minutes. Kurt is arriving today - was supposed to be arriving half an hour ago. When he finally sees a car loop around the crescent and back into their driveway at the fifty-two minute mark, he has to remind himself to stay calm. Kurt's family haven't seen him in ages, too. It wouldn't be fair for Blaine to go and steal him away as soon as he gets there.
But Kurt is soon running towards him anyway. “Blaine! Blaine!”
Blaine runs to meet him halfway. They stop when they've reached each other, both panting and grinning. “I missed you!” Blaine says and Kurt's cheeks colour.
“You too.” Kurt looks behind him to where a few other kids around their age have come out to greet him. He gives them an appraising look before turning back towards Blaine and leaning in. “I'll tell you a secret - I only came back this summer to see you.” He leans away from Blaine again and Blaine feels a little bit lonely. They both give Kurt's cousins one backward glance before linking arms and heading for the beach.
~*~
There are more kids at the beach this summer. Whenever Blaine and Kurt try to wade in the surf or catch crabs or poke the dead jelly fish back into the waves to see if they will come back to life, there are always kids trying to coax them into this or that game. They play Frisbee and volleyball and Kick the Can a few times. They're even convinced to play an increasingly violent game of Red Rover that ends in Kurt with a bloody lip and his older cousin, Daniel, calling him a sissy and telling him to go be a girl somewhere else. A tall girl with freckles and long, windblown hair yells that she doesn't cry over split lips and it quickly results in a tussle - the new kids versus the yearlies.
Blaine leads Kurt away, dabbing his lip clean with his hanky, glaring at them from over his shoulder.
The day after the Red Rover incident they avoid the beach and the gaggle of obnoxious kids that assemble there. Blaine's house is their new refuge, nice and quiet and no one calling them names or breaking out in fights over nothing. Blaine likes that it's quiet, mostly because it means his father is at home in Boston for work and he's alone with his mom, but sometimes the silence gets to him and he finds himself wishing for Cooper. But Cooper is far away now - after being in New York for a few months he had met a girl and run away to California.
Blaine's mom has been working on recipes for a new cook book, which Blaine mostly loves. He gets to sample everything she makes, but sometimes she gets what she calls “blocks” and it puts her in a bad mood for days. Today she is making some sort of dessert pastries and she brings Blaine and Kurt an entire plate of them to try.
“I like your mom,” Kurt says once she is gone.
Blaine feels almost guilty, because he does have a really great mom. But he knows Kurt isn't mad about it. And Kurt has one thing he doesn't, too: a great dad. “Can I tell you a secret?” Blaine asks in a whisper.
Kurt nods very seriously and leans in towards Blaine, his berry pastry in the air near his mouth.
“She's the only person in my whole family who I do. Like, I mean. My brother Cooper is mean and my dad... well, most of the time he scares me.”
Kurt nods again, his face full of empathy. “I don't like most of my family either. Well, you've met my cousins...” He leaves it hanging there because, yeah, Blaine has met them. The ones he's spent time with are not fun to be around in the slightest.
~*~
That night when Blaine is in bed reading a book, his mother comes in and sits on the edge of his mattress.
“Blaine? Can I talk to you about something, sweetheart?”
Blaine closes his book and sets it to the side. She looks serious. Her eyes are sad.
“I heard you talking with Kurt today. I didn't mean to... but I did. And what you said -”
Blaine sits up, back straight. He feels panic bubbling in his belly. “Mama, I didn't -”
“It's okay, Blaine. I'm not mad at you, I promise. It's just... what you said, about Dad... Blaine, has he ever given you any reason to be afraid of him?”
There are tears in his mother's eyes now and Blaine feels a lump forming in his throat and prickling at the backs of his eyes. He gnaws on his bottom lip and watches her for a moment, worried that if he opens his mouth to respond he's going to start crying. He shakes his head instead.
“Baby, you need to tell me, okay? Please.”
“No,” Blaine manages. “He's just... he's so angry at me all the time. I'm not even bad. I don't think he likes me.” His voice finally cracks and one lone tear escapes his eye and tumbles onto his cheek. His mother reaches out and wipes it away.
“Oh, honey, of course he loves you.”
“But he doesn't like me. I'm old enough to know that isn't the same thing, Mama.”
His mother shakes her head. “He's just stressed from work. It isn't your fault. I'm going to talk to him, okay?”
Blaine bugs out his eyes and begins shaking his head in protest. “I won't tell him what you said. I promise.”
Blaine looks down at his bedspread and picks at a loose thread, avoiding her gaze. He can feel her still watching him, waiting for more. There is more, of course. So much more. He could let it spill out of him for days if he really wanted to. He doesn't. He feels like he hasn't given her quite what she wants, however, and Blaine hates to disappoint anyone, especially her. “Cooper says... Cooper says I was an accident.”
“Sweetie, just because you were unplanned doesn't mean you were unwanted. Okay?” Her thin fingers reach out and take hold of Blaine's chin and she turns his face up so they are looking each other in the eye. “You were a surprise, Blaine. Not an accident. And surprises are my favourite thing in the world.”
“Mine too.”
She smiles and rubs a thumb across his cheek, wiping away any remaining tear tracks. “And I'll tell you a little secret - Cooper was a surprise, too. And a much more difficult one, seeing as your father and I had only just finished college and didn't even have jobs yet. You were an easier surprise, in every single way.”
Blaine laughs a little and she pats him on the leg before getting up and pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “I love you, my baby. And you can always talk to me about anything, all right?”
“I will, Mama. I love you, too.”
~*~
The next week, Blaine's mom reaches one of her “blocks”. One morning at breakfast she gives Blaine money to buy lunch for both him and Kurt at the boardwalk diner and sends him on his way with strict instructions to leave her to her work.
They spend the morning trying to dodge the ever-growing group of hooligan children. They are accosted anyway as they are leaving the diner, still clutching the milkshakes the nice waitress transferred into paper cups so they could take them to go.
The leader of the rabble - a vicious girl named Victoria - tells them they are organizing an epic game of Capture the Flag and they need to join in. Her younger brother, Todd, coaxes while she stands by with a smirk, her beady little eyes taunting them.
Blaine wants to tell them to go away and leave him and Kurt alone. He wants to say something far, far worse. Something that Cooper would punch him in the arm until he repeated over and over in summers gone by. But Cooper isn't there to force it out of him, and Blaine hates using such words. He glances over at Kurt who raises one eyebrow and shakes his head minutely.
“No thanks,” Blaine says. He is met with jeers and name calling and why nots. Kurt looks upset as two of his cousins join in. Apparently losing one's mother only affords a single summer of sympathy. Blaine gives them a dirty look. “I said no, thank you,” he repeats. “We don't want to play.”
“Why not?” Todd asks, his lip curled in an ugly sneer.
“Because you're -” Come on, Squirt, he can hear Cooper cajoling in his mind. Say it. You know you want to. Mom's not here to yell at you. Say it! “...uncivilized,” he finishes and the Cooper is his mind scoffs in disappointment.
“Oooh! What'd he call us?” the real boys in front of him taunt.
“Uncircumcised!” someone shouts from the back of the group and everyone laughs.
“Fancy words, Anderson,” Kurt's cousin Daniel says. “Sorry if we're not impressed.”
“Shut up,” Kurt tells him and he gives Kurt the finger.
“We don't want you two playing anyway,” Todd says. “You act like stupid girls and would probably go home crying to your mommy.”
Victoria takes offence to this and punches her brother in the gut.
“Geez, Vic!” he exclaims, bent over and holding his stomach. “I meant stupid girls. Not awesome ones like you.”
She is appeased and they shuffle away with a parting call of, “see you around, babies!”
An hour later Kurt spots a red plastic flag poking out of an outcropping of rock. An uncharacteristically evil grin spreads across his face and he looks around for a moment before scrabbling up the jagged stone and pulling it out. “I guess we win,” he says, and tosses it into the water.
~*~
The In-Between - Year Two: Assorted letters and a recipe for scones.
Dear Blaine,
I nearly destroyed our kitchen. Do you think your mom would teach me how to make a soufflé? My dad was really mad. But after we went out for burgers and he took me to a bookstore to buy some cookbooks. Guess he knows I'm getting tired of eating the same five things every week with pizza and the occasional Chinese food on the weekends. I bought one of your mom's cookbooks. I didn't know she used to be a chef. I would love to go to chef school. Does she have the hat? I want the hat. Maybe we could have a class in pastries too, because I tried that and it's really hard but not nearly as messy. I guess I'll stick to easier stuff until I'm instructed by a professional. I did make a really good hollandaise sauce on Sunday morning though. And really good eggs. Dad was impressed. Too bad I choked the next time I tried to cook for him. Soufflés are hard.
I miss you. My friend Olivia moved away during the summer and most of the kids in my class are jerks. I wish we lived in the same place. At least the same state!
I should go do my math homework I guess. My worst subject. Write back to me soon!
Kurt
~*~
Dear Kurt,
Do you know what I wish? That you could come to my birthday party. We're going to some laser tag game place, even though what I really wanted was to go to the roller rink. Cooper had a party with laser tag once and my dad says the boys all had fun. Why can't they have fun at the roller rink instead? They have karaoke and light shows and it looks like there's glitter in the air but it's not actually real. So it doesn't make the floor slippery or whatever. Also I invited girls too and he asked me why. Because they're my friends? He seems to think they won't like the laser tag but my friend Jessica is the best at laser tag in my whole class. My dad is so weird sometimes.
He keeps trying to spend time with me now because my mom told him he should. It's not even fun. Except we went to a football game together. It would have been better if some of his work friends hadn't come with us. Mostly I was bored but the hotdogs were good. The game was okay too I guess. He says now that it's basketball season we should go to some college games and watch March Madness or something on TV. I don't even like basketball. What's March Madness? I was going to ask him but I didn't want him to look at me all weird like he does when I don't understand something.
Sometimes I think I liked it better when he ignored me. Mostly I feel like he's looking for a reason to get mad.
Mom wrote out her special recipe for cinnamon scones just for you. She said to add an extra two tablespoons of sugar if you want them sweeter. And also good luck.
I really wish that you could come to my party. If I could have a party with only me and you I would choose it over a party with every other person in the world any day. I wish my birthday was in August instead of March.
From,
Blaine
*
Ingredients
2 ½ cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
6 Tbsp butter, softened
3/4 cup milk
2-3 tsp cinnamon
2-3 Tbsp brown sugar
Instructions
Sift and measure the flour.
Resift it with the other dry ingredients.
Work the softened butter into the dry mix with a pastry blender or a fork.
Add the milk.
Turn the dough on to a lightly floured surface.
Divide the dough into 2 pieces, rolling each piece into a circle the thickness of biscuits.
Sprinkle cinnamon and brown sugar over the dough as you knead. This will work the cinnamon and brown sugar into the dough in swirls. I add the cinnamon and brown sugar until there are streaks throughout the dough.
Cut each disc of scone dough into four wedges (to make 8 scones in total) and place them on a greased baking sheet.
Bake them at 400-425 degrees for 10-15 minutes until the bottoms are golden and the insides are done.
~*~*~
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