Title: Waiting For This Moment
Pairings: Blaine/Kurt
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~1,800
Warnings: Homophobia
Spoilers: Up through 2x16 - Original Songs; general spoilers for things to come
Summary: Prom night doesn't go as planned, and Rachel gets to play Fairy Godmother to help put things to rights.
Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to any of these characters. I simply dabble in this toybox.
Kurt couldn't believe this was happening.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Rachel stepped out of the gymnasium doors, her prom dress glittering under the streetlights in the parking lot.
"They won't let me in," Blaine said softly, a resigned look on his face.
Kurt couldn't stand to see how easily Blaine gave up, just stood back and let everyone tell them how wrong they were. How unacceptable.
"What do you mean?" Rachel frowned, her eyebrows narrowing. "We're supposed to be taking pictures together! We can't do prom pictures without you! Oh. Well, Kurt, too."
Kurt rolled his eyes. "Yes, thank you, Rachel. He doesn't even go to this school."
"That's not the point," Rachel argued primly. "I already arranged where everyone should stand or kneel, based on height and romantic couplings. If Blaine isn't there, it will throw off the entire scheme."
"No. Rachel." Blaine looked at Kurt, then took Rachel by the arm, in a very gentlemanly manner, and led her away, so that Kurt wouldn't have to hear every word. He wasn't fragile. He wasn't going to break over this. He'd had worse than some stupid homophobic rules about how the only students from other schools that were allowed were dates, and that since Blaine and Kurt were both boys, it didn't count.
They were saying he and Blaine didn't count. They were saying they weren't a legitimate couple, that they were worth less than any of the other couples in the school.
It felt like he was being erased.
"What?!" Rachel shrieked in outrage.
Kurt crossed his arms, looking down at the concrete. This was supposed to be the night of his life. Instead, he was stuck loitering outside with his boyfriend, because nobody ever thought to care about the gay kids, to care about how it might feel to lose out on this milestone. They probably thought he didn't deserve to go to prom, that people like him and Blaine didn't belong there with all the 'normal' people.
He looked up when Blaine wrapped an arm around his waist.
"Hey, stop thinking so hard. You're going to give yourself wrinkles if you keep that up."
"You think you're funny," Kurt said, unable to keep a smile completely at bay, "but you're really not." He looked around. "Where did Rachel go?"
"She said she had an idea, and told us to stay put." Blaine was smiling that stupid, confused smile he always wore when Rachel hurricaned her way around him. Kurt was pretty sure Blaine was equal part amused by and frightened of Rachel. On a good day.
"It's not like we have anywhere to go," Kurt groused. His eyes widened in surprise when Blaine raised himself up on his tiptoes to kiss him straight on.
It was one of those stupidly cute things Blaine did.
Kurt was sure Blaine's insecurity over his height would get old soon, but for now the jumping on furniture and standing one step higher than Kurt on the stairs, or kneeling when Kurt was sitting- it was all cute.
Plus, Kurt liked it when Blaine kissed him from above. It made him think back to their first kiss, and how unbelievably perfect it had been. Leaning his head back to accept a kiss never failed to bring back the pure joy of that moment.
"Fucking queers," he heard someone shout from across the lot.
Blaine, startled, tried to pull away. Kurt wrapped his hands around Blaine's neck and kissed him harder, pushing his mouth so hard against Blaine's that Blaine's head bent backwards to accommodate the forceful kiss.
"Uh. Whoa. We can come back."
Finn. That was Finn's voice. Kurt slowly, reluctantly, let go of Blaine. They were both breathing a little harder from the excitement, and Blaine's eyes were wide in shock and pleasure.
"You can look now," he said in a weary tone to Finn, who must have turned around the second he got close enough to really take in what Blaine and Kurt were doing.
"Rachel said they won't let you guys into prom," Finn said as he turned around, finally braving the sight of his step-brother and step-brother's boyfriend. Together.
"We?" Kurt asked, not seeing anyone aside from Finn interrupting his and Blaine's heated kiss.
"Yeah. The rest of the glee club is coming out, too. They, uh, they might be a few minutes." Finn looked bashful, rubbing the back of his head. But he was smiling.
Kurt and Blaine couldn't get into prom, but for some reason, Finn was smiling like everything was going to be okay. Kurt didn't understand him at all.
But, within five minutes of awkward, stilted conversation between the three boys, it all became clear.
People were pouring out of the gymnasium: glee kids, band kids, jazz club kids, some of the Cheerios Kurt had befriended during his stint on the team, Lauren and Artie's friends in the A/V club, even Mike's friends from the Asian Students Union and a couple of the jocks who were probably threatened by Santana and Puck into heading outside with everyone else.
Kurt grabbed ahold of Blaine's hand and clung to it tightly, his grip desperate and embarrassingly clingy. But Blaine held back just as tightly, firm and steadying. Kurt could feel a tremor run down his arm, despite his aloof façade, and it was comforting to know he wasn't the only one affected.
"What's going on?" Blaine asked, staring as some of the band players started pulling instruments out of cases someone had wheeled outside on a trolley.
"Prom," Rachel said, suddenly behind the both of them.
"Oh my god, Rachel!" Kurt yelped, letting go of Blaine to instinctively throw his arms up in the air, and turned around. His was heart racing at the sudden shock. How the hell did she end up behind them?
"I know!" she said with an extreme amount of enthusiasm, clearly misinterpreting Kurt's surprise. "Isn't it wonderful? Prom in a parking lot," she said, the look in her eyes bright and manic. "This will be a beautiful moment in a movie one day, when they make a biopic about my life."
"Uh. Right," Kurt said, nodding with the practice of someone who was all too used to Rachel Berry's personal brand of crazy. Blaine was smiling at her indulgently
When the music started, Kurt looked around. People were dancing right there, out in the parking lot. The streetlights weren't exactly optimal mood lighting, but no one seemed to care.
"May I have this dance?"
Kurt turned to look at Blaine, who had the world's sappiest smile on his face, and his hand held out for Kurt to take.
"Of course you may," Kurt whispered back at him, telling himself that this was real.
Blaine tucked himself up against Kurt and began to lead, guiding Kurt into the dance easily.
Kurt was slow-dancing. He was slow-dancing with a boy. His boyfriend, and no one was saying anything, or doing anything about it. He had his friends around him, dancing with each other, talking, laughing, and tonight was actually happening.
It wasn't perfect. It wasn't some happy fairytale where Blaine and Kurt got into prom without a hitch and everything went according to plan.
It was, in a way, almost better than that.
Well, not better. No one caring that he had a boyfriend would be infinitely better. But all these people were giving up the prom going on inside, giving up some of their time at their own prom experience, to make it up to him. That was what felt so good about it.
"Why are you leading?" Kurt teased, suddenly full of cheer over what his friends managed to accomplish in a matter of minutes, just for him. For him and Blaine. "You're shorter than me. I should be leading." He wasn't being completely serious, and he knew Blaine would understand.
Blaine, predictably, snickered, pushing his weight into the dance a little heavier, moving Kurt as they danced. "Next time, maybe you should be the one to ask me to dance. Then you can lead to your heart's content."
"I'm good," Kurt laughed, leaning his head down to kiss him. Blaine smiled into the kiss, the two of them wrapped up in each other and moving in time to the music.
"Thank you," Blaine whispered, his grip briefly tightening in Kurt's hand.
"For what?" Kurt lay his head on Blaine's shoulder. He closed his eyes, wanting to experience all of this without any distractions. Just him and Blaine. He breathed it all in: the smell of Blaine's cologne, the fragrance of the flower in his boutonniere, the familiar scent of the hair products he used to keep his hair tamed, Blaine himself.
He wanted to commit it to memory, so that he would remember this particular smell for a long time to come.
"For bringing me here. To prom. I never thought I would have this." Blaine sounded sad. Or, maybe not sad, exactly, but something close to it. "And for everything else. For you. For your friends. For being strong enough to come back here."
Kurt stood back up straight, a questioning expression. "You hate that I left Dalton."
"I hate being apart from you," Blaine admitted, his smile weak. "But I admire you so much, Kurt. I can't imagine ever being brave enough to do what you're doing, every single day, just by coming here and dealing with this."
"Life doesn't have a zero-tolerance harassment policy," Kurt whispered, echoing what he said to Blaine before he left Dalton for his old school, full of bullies and jerks who would be more than happy to make his life a living hell.
The two of them had stopped dancing, their hands still in the same places, but their feet no longer moving.
"I know," Blaine said. He swallowed a lump in his throat down.
"Courage," Kurt said, knowing his eyes were probably watery at this point. But he was smiling.
Blaine nodded, a smile creeping up on his face. A real one, not fake or forced.
"Courage."
"And if courage fails, you've got me," Kurt said.
Blaine laughed, too hard, too loud, but Kurt understood. He wasn't laughing at Kurt.
He was laughing off the hurt.
"Yeah. I've got you. And you've got me, too," he said, composing himself. "For as long as you'll have me."
"I hope you're prepared to deal with me when I lose all my hair, then," Kurt warned him. "Because I'm never letting you go." He blushed when he realized how that might sound, barely two months into their shiny new relationship.
"As long as you're around to remind me where I left my dentures, I think I'll cope. I think I could grow to love the bald look on you."
Both boys were smiling stupidly, lovestruck and aware of how silly they sounded, but neither caring even a little bit.