You Should Know Better
Title: You Should Know Better
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Some language, but nothing beyond that
Spoilers: Not for anything anyone is counting, I think (i.e. for The First Time, that’s it)
Summary: In the aftermath of Scandals, Blaine worries about what he's done, how he can fix it, and what he deserves.
Author’s Note: This comes from an idea I had back when The First Time aired, but I didn’t have time to write then, I do now. I should warn you, apparently letting my ideas age allows them to develop deeper angsty notes.
By the time he gets home, Blaine is just sober enough. Just sober enough to know that he can’t go inside yet because his mother will slaughter him if she catches him like this. Just sober enough to understand how badly he fucked up. Just sober enough to hate himself again.
Blaine had sworn, had promised that he’d never be like this, that he would never be this guy, but somehow here he is, the guy sitting on his front porch, trying to sober up enough to go inside without waking anyone, the guy who stumbles out of a bar claiming he’d only had one drink, they guy who pulls his boyfriend into the back seat of a car and paws at him and makes him feel cheap and unloved and --
either you can’t tell or you just don’t care.
Blaine is pretty sure he’s going to be sick.
He can’t get Kurt’s face out of his head, can’t forget Kurt’s expression as he backed out of the car, backed away from Blaine, can’t stop himself from playing the memory over and over again trying to parse out all the different emotions in Kurt’s eyes. Anger. Sadness. Hurt. Disappointment. God, fear?
Blaine tries not to think that Kurt will never forgive him. He can’t think that. Kurt will forgive him -- eventually -- he has to, because Kurt loves him.
Except that might be worse.
Suddenly Blaine doesn’t care about waking anybody up. He pushes off the step and sways toward the door. It takes him three tries to slide his key into the lock and he has to rest his forehead against the door for a moment to stop the room from spinning after he turns around a bit too quickly to close it, but once the bolt slides back into place Blaine doesn’t head up the stairs toward his bed.
His mother has given up trying to keep alcohol out of the house and the only thing Blaine wants more than to find Kurt and beg and cry until Kurt forgives him is to forget that this night ever happened.
As he slides down to sit on the kitchen floor, back braced against the cupboards, grimacing at the sour taste of the cheap beer he’d found in the fridge, Blaine has never hated himself more.
~~
He probably deserves it when he wakes up the next morning with a blinding headache and a clear memory of everything that had happened the night before.
~~~
It’s two days before Blaine speaks to Kurt again.
They don’t have any classes together except for Glee, which has been cancelled to make time for dress rehearsal. Blaine sees him across the stage a few times and in the one scene that they share, but Kurt doesn’t slide over to talk to him while Mike is busy going over choreography with some of the Jets and even though Blaine pulls all five of the carefully labeled bottles out of the cupboard and sets his phone next to them at 7:30, just so he’ll be ready for their skin sloughing routine at 8:00, Kurt never calls.
Blaine does the routine anyway, because they’re the same products Kurt uses and he can bury his face in his hands when he’s done and pretend it smells a bit like the spot just below Kurt’s jaw where the scent sometimes seems to linger.
He throws himself into preparation for the musical the next day because it’s easier than thinking about Kurt. Usually on the day of a performance he tries to focus his mind elsewhere for a while, only allowing thirty seconds of nerves just before the lights go up. It was the only way he ever got himself on stage when he started with the Warblers, don’t think about it, just do it. But on opening day of West Side Story, Blaine drowns himself in anxiety because worrying about blocking is better than wondering if Kurt will ever speak to him again, running lines in his head is better than tearing his hair out trying to come up with an apology that doesn’t twist in his throat into something awful and insincere and familiar, and worrying about how he’s supposed to play a convincing Tony when he’s still so woefully inexperienced is so much better than trying to figure out the worst way this whole thing could end.
That doesn’t mean he doesn’t spend ten minutes wondering if he can fake a stomach flu and lock his understudy in a closet and somehow convince Artie to ask Kurt to play Tony, wondering if that would be enough (it wouldn’t) but he mostly manages to keep his mind off of it right up until the moment Rachel goes for his knees without even realizing it.
“Against all odds they found each other. I know what that’s like. You do too.”
Blaine does know, but he also knows what it’s like to fuck it up.
It’s a miracle he makes it though the rest of the show, bluffing his way through the lines, relying on muscle memory to get him to his marks, tripping over dance moves he’s nailed a thousand times before. He always thought that watching the curtain drop on opening night would be exhilarating, but he just feels relieved, relieved that he made it all the way through without making a fool of himself, relieved that he didn’t listen to the voice in the back of his head suggesting he interrupt the show to pull Kurt on stage and apologize publicly, relieved that the day is finally over and he can just go home and bury himself in his bed.
His plan is to stay at the theater until he thinks he can go home without setting out those five little bottles and staring pathetically at his phone, until it’s late enough that he can reasonably pretend that he just missed Kurt’s call. He isn’t sure when that will be, but two or three in the morning seems late enough and until then he can work on the choreography he screwed up because that at least is something he can fix.
It’s only 11:30 when he hears Kurt step out of the wings behind him.
“Shouldn’t you be celebrating?”
He looks anywhere but at Kurt when he says “I know I can do better” because as much as he wants it to be true and wants Kurt to know that, he’s also terrified that it’s a lie.
It’s remarkable how much Blaine relaxes when Kurt doesn’t just leave then, how much easier to breathe it is after Kurt says “Personally, I though both you guys were perfect.”
Blaine breathes out “thank you,” and he means for so much.
He can’t manage to find his feet in their banter though. Kurt jokes about pulling focus and Blaine knows he’s supposed to respond with something witty or teasing, but he can’t. He can’t get the memory of Kurt’s face out of his head -- angry, sad, hurt, disappointed -- and he needs Kurt to know that he means it, that he was amazing tonight, that he should never apologize for being extraordinary.
It feels a bit like the world spins on and leaves him scrambling after it when Kurt mentions Sebastian. Blaine suddenly needs Kurt closer, he needs to be touching him, he needs to be focused on him because Blaine has always found it nearly impossible to lie when Kurt was close, when Kurt was touching, when Kurt was all he could see and he needs this to be true and he needs Kurt to know that.
It isn’t like any apology he’d planned. It’s too much about Sebastian -- which is alright because he is sorry for that, but there are so many other things too.
It’s okay though, Sebastian can be code for everything Blaine has done wrong. Blaine can say Sebastian and mean Scandals, he can say Sebastian and mean I only had one beer, he can say Sebastian and mean let’s just do it and why are you yelling at me and I’m sorry if I’m trying to be spontaneous and fun.
He can say Sebastian and mean Either you can’t tell or you just don’t care.
Sebastian can mean everything and Kurt will understand because Kurt always understands him.
“Well it sure beats the last time you were drunk and made out with Rachel.”
Blaine knows that Kurt means it as I forgive you, but it’s sharp in a way that maybe Kurt doesn’t even understand because Blaine has been drunk a total of two times in his life and both of those times led to Kurt sad and angry and Blaine walking away from him. He takes the forgiveness, but he also holds the sharp ends close as a reminder, and a warning.
Blaine always does best with Kurt when he stops thinking and stops worrying about what Kurt wants him to be and just does what he feels (at least when he’s sober he does). It’s how their first kiss happened, it’s how they got to I love you, it’s how almost every good thing in their relationship has happened -- at least all the ones Blaine is responsible for -- so when Kurt apologizes for being a romantic, something Blaine already knows about him and should have remembered, something Blaine loves about him, something he never wants Kurt to apologize for, Blaine stops thinking.
He says words he doesn’t have the breath for because the rest of him is already two steps ahead, already pressed against Kurt, already breathless from it.
It must have been the right decision because it gets him “I was so proud to be with you” and it’s like the world has suddenly turned right side up. Kurt doesn’t know what it means to him, he can’t know how hard Blaine has worked or how much he’s wanted to hear something like that, he can’t know that for Blaine I’m proud of you means more than anything, more, even, than I love you. Kurt can’t possibly know that which makes it so much better because it means he must actually mean it.
Blaine wants to prove to Kurt that he’s right, that he can be proud of him -- all the time, not just when he’s on stage. Artie’s party will be safe, but Puck will be there so there will almost certainly be alcohol eventually. He decides in the split second before the invitation leaves his mouth that it will be perfect. He can prove to Kurt that he can be around alcohol without being an ass, that he can be around alcohol and not even drink. He can prove that he can do it better.
Kurt’s refusal almost stops his heart, but Kurt’s hands are still wrapped in his and Kurt’s thumb is still playing over his knuckles, so Blaine keeps breathing and waits.
“I want to go to your house.”
It isn’t anything he ever expected and it’s everything he ever wanted.
“Okay.”
~~
When Blaine wakes up he’s crowded close to Kurt, head tucked beneath Kurt’s chin, face pressed against Kurt’s throat. For a while at least he doesn’t worry about deserving it, he just wraps an arm more firmly around Kurt’s waist and finds the spot just below his jaw where the scent of his moisturizer lingers. Kurt is here, Kurt loves him, Kurt is proud of him and -- for a while at least -- it’s enough.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Some language, but nothing beyond that
Spoilers: Not for anything anyone is counting, I think (i.e. for The First Time, that’s it)
Summary: In the aftermath of Scandals, Blaine worries about what he's done, how he can fix it, and what he deserves.
Author’s Note: This comes from an idea I had back when The First Time aired, but I didn’t have time to write then, I do now. I should warn you, apparently letting my ideas age allows them to develop deeper angsty notes.
By the time he gets home, Blaine is just sober enough. Just sober enough to know that he can’t go inside yet because his mother will slaughter him if she catches him like this. Just sober enough to understand how badly he fucked up. Just sober enough to hate himself again.
Blaine had sworn, had promised that he’d never be like this, that he would never be this guy, but somehow here he is, the guy sitting on his front porch, trying to sober up enough to go inside without waking anyone, the guy who stumbles out of a bar claiming he’d only had one drink, they guy who pulls his boyfriend into the back seat of a car and paws at him and makes him feel cheap and unloved and --
either you can’t tell or you just don’t care.
Blaine is pretty sure he’s going to be sick.
He can’t get Kurt’s face out of his head, can’t forget Kurt’s expression as he backed out of the car, backed away from Blaine, can’t stop himself from playing the memory over and over again trying to parse out all the different emotions in Kurt’s eyes. Anger. Sadness. Hurt. Disappointment. God, fear?
Blaine tries not to think that Kurt will never forgive him. He can’t think that. Kurt will forgive him -- eventually -- he has to, because Kurt loves him.
Except that might be worse.
Suddenly Blaine doesn’t care about waking anybody up. He pushes off the step and sways toward the door. It takes him three tries to slide his key into the lock and he has to rest his forehead against the door for a moment to stop the room from spinning after he turns around a bit too quickly to close it, but once the bolt slides back into place Blaine doesn’t head up the stairs toward his bed.
His mother has given up trying to keep alcohol out of the house and the only thing Blaine wants more than to find Kurt and beg and cry until Kurt forgives him is to forget that this night ever happened.
As he slides down to sit on the kitchen floor, back braced against the cupboards, grimacing at the sour taste of the cheap beer he’d found in the fridge, Blaine has never hated himself more.
~~
He probably deserves it when he wakes up the next morning with a blinding headache and a clear memory of everything that had happened the night before.
~~~
It’s two days before Blaine speaks to Kurt again.
They don’t have any classes together except for Glee, which has been cancelled to make time for dress rehearsal. Blaine sees him across the stage a few times and in the one scene that they share, but Kurt doesn’t slide over to talk to him while Mike is busy going over choreography with some of the Jets and even though Blaine pulls all five of the carefully labeled bottles out of the cupboard and sets his phone next to them at 7:30, just so he’ll be ready for their skin sloughing routine at 8:00, Kurt never calls.
Blaine does the routine anyway, because they’re the same products Kurt uses and he can bury his face in his hands when he’s done and pretend it smells a bit like the spot just below Kurt’s jaw where the scent sometimes seems to linger.
He throws himself into preparation for the musical the next day because it’s easier than thinking about Kurt. Usually on the day of a performance he tries to focus his mind elsewhere for a while, only allowing thirty seconds of nerves just before the lights go up. It was the only way he ever got himself on stage when he started with the Warblers, don’t think about it, just do it. But on opening day of West Side Story, Blaine drowns himself in anxiety because worrying about blocking is better than wondering if Kurt will ever speak to him again, running lines in his head is better than tearing his hair out trying to come up with an apology that doesn’t twist in his throat into something awful and insincere and familiar, and worrying about how he’s supposed to play a convincing Tony when he’s still so woefully inexperienced is so much better than trying to figure out the worst way this whole thing could end.
That doesn’t mean he doesn’t spend ten minutes wondering if he can fake a stomach flu and lock his understudy in a closet and somehow convince Artie to ask Kurt to play Tony, wondering if that would be enough (it wouldn’t) but he mostly manages to keep his mind off of it right up until the moment Rachel goes for his knees without even realizing it.
“Against all odds they found each other. I know what that’s like. You do too.”
Blaine does know, but he also knows what it’s like to fuck it up.
It’s a miracle he makes it though the rest of the show, bluffing his way through the lines, relying on muscle memory to get him to his marks, tripping over dance moves he’s nailed a thousand times before. He always thought that watching the curtain drop on opening night would be exhilarating, but he just feels relieved, relieved that he made it all the way through without making a fool of himself, relieved that he didn’t listen to the voice in the back of his head suggesting he interrupt the show to pull Kurt on stage and apologize publicly, relieved that the day is finally over and he can just go home and bury himself in his bed.
His plan is to stay at the theater until he thinks he can go home without setting out those five little bottles and staring pathetically at his phone, until it’s late enough that he can reasonably pretend that he just missed Kurt’s call. He isn’t sure when that will be, but two or three in the morning seems late enough and until then he can work on the choreography he screwed up because that at least is something he can fix.
It’s only 11:30 when he hears Kurt step out of the wings behind him.
“Shouldn’t you be celebrating?”
He looks anywhere but at Kurt when he says “I know I can do better” because as much as he wants it to be true and wants Kurt to know that, he’s also terrified that it’s a lie.
It’s remarkable how much Blaine relaxes when Kurt doesn’t just leave then, how much easier to breathe it is after Kurt says “Personally, I though both you guys were perfect.”
Blaine breathes out “thank you,” and he means for so much.
He can’t manage to find his feet in their banter though. Kurt jokes about pulling focus and Blaine knows he’s supposed to respond with something witty or teasing, but he can’t. He can’t get the memory of Kurt’s face out of his head -- angry, sad, hurt, disappointed -- and he needs Kurt to know that he means it, that he was amazing tonight, that he should never apologize for being extraordinary.
It feels a bit like the world spins on and leaves him scrambling after it when Kurt mentions Sebastian. Blaine suddenly needs Kurt closer, he needs to be touching him, he needs to be focused on him because Blaine has always found it nearly impossible to lie when Kurt was close, when Kurt was touching, when Kurt was all he could see and he needs this to be true and he needs Kurt to know that.
It isn’t like any apology he’d planned. It’s too much about Sebastian -- which is alright because he is sorry for that, but there are so many other things too.
It’s okay though, Sebastian can be code for everything Blaine has done wrong. Blaine can say Sebastian and mean Scandals, he can say Sebastian and mean I only had one beer, he can say Sebastian and mean let’s just do it and why are you yelling at me and I’m sorry if I’m trying to be spontaneous and fun.
He can say Sebastian and mean Either you can’t tell or you just don’t care.
Sebastian can mean everything and Kurt will understand because Kurt always understands him.
“Well it sure beats the last time you were drunk and made out with Rachel.”
Blaine knows that Kurt means it as I forgive you, but it’s sharp in a way that maybe Kurt doesn’t even understand because Blaine has been drunk a total of two times in his life and both of those times led to Kurt sad and angry and Blaine walking away from him. He takes the forgiveness, but he also holds the sharp ends close as a reminder, and a warning.
Blaine always does best with Kurt when he stops thinking and stops worrying about what Kurt wants him to be and just does what he feels (at least when he’s sober he does). It’s how their first kiss happened, it’s how they got to I love you, it’s how almost every good thing in their relationship has happened -- at least all the ones Blaine is responsible for -- so when Kurt apologizes for being a romantic, something Blaine already knows about him and should have remembered, something Blaine loves about him, something he never wants Kurt to apologize for, Blaine stops thinking.
He says words he doesn’t have the breath for because the rest of him is already two steps ahead, already pressed against Kurt, already breathless from it.
It must have been the right decision because it gets him “I was so proud to be with you” and it’s like the world has suddenly turned right side up. Kurt doesn’t know what it means to him, he can’t know how hard Blaine has worked or how much he’s wanted to hear something like that, he can’t know that for Blaine I’m proud of you means more than anything, more, even, than I love you. Kurt can’t possibly know that which makes it so much better because it means he must actually mean it.
Blaine wants to prove to Kurt that he’s right, that he can be proud of him -- all the time, not just when he’s on stage. Artie’s party will be safe, but Puck will be there so there will almost certainly be alcohol eventually. He decides in the split second before the invitation leaves his mouth that it will be perfect. He can prove to Kurt that he can be around alcohol without being an ass, that he can be around alcohol and not even drink. He can prove that he can do it better.
Kurt’s refusal almost stops his heart, but Kurt’s hands are still wrapped in his and Kurt’s thumb is still playing over his knuckles, so Blaine keeps breathing and waits.
“I want to go to your house.”
It isn’t anything he ever expected and it’s everything he ever wanted.
“Okay.”
~~
When Blaine wakes up he’s crowded close to Kurt, head tucked beneath Kurt’s chin, face pressed against Kurt’s throat. For a while at least he doesn’t worry about deserving it, he just wraps an arm more firmly around Kurt’s waist and finds the spot just below his jaw where the scent of his moisturizer lingers. Kurt is here, Kurt loves him, Kurt is proud of him and -- for a while at least -- it’s enough.