kerrigan & lowdermilk can write the soundtrack to our life
Title: kerrigan & lowdermilk can write the soundtrack to our life
Fandom: Glee
Written: November, 2010
Rating: PG-13
Words: 5900
Summary: Kurt and Blaine's relationship, as set to music by Kait Kerrigan and Brian Lowdermilk.
Notes: All lyrics are links to videos of the songs. You should probably watch them, because the music is amazing.
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when we last talked we were lying on our backs
looking up at the sky through the ceiling
i used to lie like that alone out on the driveway
trying to read the greek upon the stars
the alphabet of feeling
He’s been at Dalton for three weeks and he’s become a regular decorative ornament in Blaine and Freddie’s room. The two have taken him under their wings - both metaphorically and literally - teaching him the ins and outs of the school in addition to trapping him under their arms whenever they feel like reminding him that they are friends.
The impromptu jam sessions are just an added bonus to his continued presence in their room.
Freddie plays guitar while Blaine and Kurt sit across from him on Blaine’s bed, singing and dancing with their hands. It’s a free and relaxed atmosphere, the kind of thing New Directions did a grand total of once. Kurt thinks that maybe, if the McKinley glee club had done this from the start, they might function more as a real team.
It probably would have given him a reason to stay, too, he admits to Blaine bitterly after a particularly disappointing phone call with Mercedes.
Blaine just puts an arm around his shoulders - which is a little awkward with their height difference - and walks him back to his room. Freddie’s already sleeping, but Blaine lets Kurt lay down on his bed, poking him until he scoots over so they both have room.
They just lie there, listening Freddie’s half-snores and watching the Christmas lights Blaine has strung up blink different colors. Kurt’s pressed against the wall and their arms are touching and he’s starting to feel warm in all the right ways.
Blaine turns his head and his breath is warm across Kurt’s ear when he asks, “What do you want out of life?”
Kurt’s voice is breathy and even more high-pitched than usual when he whispers back, “What?” He’s not quite sure why Blaine wants to talk about something like that right now when they could end up waking Freddie or when he should be back in his own room because it’s curfew in a half hour and he’ll get in trouble if he’s not back in time.
“What do you want out of life?” Blaine repeats. “I want to know about your dreams and plans. And not the superficial ones where we all say happiness, wealth, and New York City.”
So Kurt thinks. They lay in silence and he watches the lights flash across the ceiling, dimming and flaring and sparking. He watches the colors change from cold blue to hot red and bright yellow and calming green. He finds himself distracted, wishing there was a purple light, because he wore purple on October 20th and now that color actually means something and it’s then that it hits him.
“I want to make a difference,” he says softly, speaking to the dancing lights.
“Don’t we all?” Blaine challenges, like he always does when Kurt tries to answer one of those open-ended questions.
“No, I’m serious,” Kurt continues, knowing Blaine won’t drop it until he’s satisfied with Kurt’s answer. “I’m the only openly gay kid at McKinley. Well, I was, but that’s beside the point. I can make a difference in Lima by not shutting up. Going to a new school doesn’t have to change that, right?”
“And how are you going to do that?”
“NOM has a tour for marriage, or whatever it’s called, and they’re coming to Lima.” This particular event has been at the forefront of Kurt’s mind for a while. “I can go to their event and talk to people. Not the NOM people, but my neighbors. People who know me. I can tell them why it’s wrong.”
“And I can come too,” Blaine decided, inviting himself.
“And you can come too,” Kurt agreed.
They both turned their heads to look at each other at the same time, faces knocking together.
“Ow,” Kurt turned his face back up to the ceiling, a hand going to the spot near his temple that had bumped against Blaine.
“Close quarters,” Blaine reminded them, one head-knock too late.
Henry and Mudge, Henry and Mudge
Fooling around and having fun
Henry and Mudge, Henry and Mudge
Nobody is better if you’re running or joking or just coming through
Stuck together with crazy glue
Kurt hadn’t hesitated when he saw a sign on the bulletin board advertising for Latin tutoring. McKinley hadn’t offered Dalton’s required dead language, so he was quite behind. It was easy enough, repeating Caecilius est in foro over and over, but he knew from experience that it would just get tougher from there.
Father Mac, their resident priest and Latin teacher, assigns Blaine to be his tutor the next day.
That was how the two boys end up quoting Harry Potter at each other, lying upside down on Blaine and Freddie’s beds with Red Vines sticking out of their mouths.
“But we’re not stupid. We know we’re called Gred and Forge,” Kurt quots in an impeccable British accent. Blaine starts giggling, taking a bite of his Red Vine and then pointing it at his bookshelf.
“Accio Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” he commands. Both boys stare at the book hopefully for a full four seconds before laughing again.
“I can’t tell you how mad I was they screwed up the pronunciation of that spell in the movie,” Kurt says thoughtfully. “Everyone knows it’s as-ee-oh, not ack-ee-oh.”
“Daniel Radcliffe clearly never listened to Jim Dale,” Blaine shaks his head.
“I know, right!” Kurt exclaims, ripping his own Red Vine out from between his teeth. “Jim Dale is a god sent down from audiobook heaven to deliver beautifully narrated books upon mankind. Why he was never cast in the movies is beyond me.”
There is more laughter, then Blaine interrupts the sugar-induced Potter nostalgia by saying, “Right, so, Latin.” Kurt groans, Red Vine back between his teeth.
“At least tell me I’ll learn more than Grumio est in culina by tomorrow. Please.” Kurt is fed up with the childish attempt to learn a dead language through reading stories about long-gone historical characters that may or may not really exist.
“Just hang in there, okay?” Blaine reaches across the gap between the beds to poke Kurt’s forehead. “In a year you’ll get to learn all about Barbillus and his jewels and you’ll have read about enough failed attempts at charming women to realize that every single Roman was clearly banging his male slaves instead.”
Kurt raises an eyebrow, an expression that was very funny upside-down.
“I’m totally not kidding. About either one of those.”
“And here I thought I’d be quoting scriptures and saying ancient prayers instead.”
“That happens later. Senior year you actually speak in Latin during mass.”
“Sounds great.”
“It’s not all that bad,” Blaine assures him. “I’m not Catholic either. All you have to do is memorize the words. And mandatory mass isn’t bad. The multiple lights make it super easy to make shadow puppets behind the pews.”
“I swear you’re really an eleven year old,” Kurt says fondly, shaking his head.
“Does that mean I get my Hogwarts letter?”
“If I say yes will you teach me some fun Latin words instead?”
“You mean like catapultam habeo and magister mundi sum?”
“What do those mean?”
“I’m sure you can figure it out,” Blaine grins at him, tapping the forgotten Latin textbook with a finger.
“Or you could just tell me?” Kurt asks hopefully, grinning back.
“Nah, it’s more fun to keep you guessing,” Blaine rights himself, sitting and opening the Latin textbook up to the marked page. “Now, let’s work on memorizing your first set of vocab words.”
“You mean all the fun words like est, in, and et?”
“Come on, you’ve gotta start somewhere,” Blaine motions for Kurt to sit up. “If you’re good I’ll tell you how to say ‘make me’.”
“Been there, done that,” Kurt waves a hand after he righted himself. “One of the seniors told me.”
“Aw, but that’s the best one,” Blaine’s face falls the tiniest bit. “And I was so looking forward to saying fac me just to see what you’d do.”
Kurt falls off the bed.
i don’t know why I tremble
when you reach for my hand
i didn’t know how to love
until you swept me away
say the word
and i just might listen
Kurt never realized just how guarded he had become about physically expressing his feelings until coming to Dalton. Sure, he would link arms with Mercedes and Quinn and Tina and sometimes Rachel - when he was feeling in a particularly good mood - but the second one of the McKinley boys reached out to touch him, he shied away. It was a knee jerk reaction at this point, what with all the bullying that had come with physical contact.
But here at Dalton, everyone was all over each other all the time. High-fives and man hugs after a job well done, no matter what the job had been, were completely normal. Good friends would actually hug properly and spontaneous dogpiles were considered an everyday occurrence. When there wasn’t enough space in the common room, it was normal for boys to squeeze into chairs together or lean against someone’s legs when they claimed a spot on the floor.
Dalton Academy is the most touchy-feely place Kurt has ever been to.
And Blaine is probably the most touchy-feely out of all of them.
Kurt isn’t used to platonic male relationships involving physical contact, so he can be forgiven for not warming up to Blaine’s openness right away. It took him all of two weeks to allow himself to put an arm around Blaine’s waist when the other boy casually dropped his own around Kurt’s shoulders. (Although that particular aspect of their physical relationship might have to change, since Blaine has to awkwardly tiptoe around if they start walking like that.)
And Kurt decides that having guy friends is really weird, regardless of how nice it is. He’s suddenly playing video games and cheering when someone blows a zombie’s head off and plugging his ears and going “lalalalala” whenever Freddie talks about everything he wants to do to the girl in the bikini. He’s learned that it’s pointless to do his hair because the boys at Dalton love noogies, and since he’s small and wiry, he’s easy to trap under an arm.
If having boy friends is weird enough, it’s nothing compared to what happens when Blaine blurts out one night that he thinks Kurt is positively breathtaking and he may or may not have been contemplating what it would be like to kiss him since they first met. Because then he and Blaine suddenly aren’t just friends anymore, they’re friends with a mutual attraction - and unbearable sexual tension, according to Freddie - who both admit that they’re not quite sure if actually starting a relationship is the best thing for either one of them.
Kurt feels a lot like Quinn whenever this happens, since he forced the blonde to explain her reasoning for wanting to be single when she confessed this desire over the summer. Quinn had put it short and sweet: “I have too much going on in my life to worry about one more thing. I’m confident enough to not need someone telling me I’m special, so why bother?”
Kurt’s too busy juggling all these new classes he has to take, Warblers practice, and daily sad phone calls from his McKinley… acquaintances… to even think about starting something with Blaine. And Blaine’s a gentleman; after blurting out his confession, he had backtracked almost immediately.
“It’s not that I’m trying to ask you out or something. I just wanted you to know. You just moved to a new school and you’ve had to deal with getting picked on all your life. This is huge for you. It’s a chance to start over. I just wanted you to know that there is someone who thinks you’re worth all the trouble and that he’ll still be here when you’re ready.”
He lets Blaine hold his hand the next time they go for a walk.
He puts his arm around Blaine’s shoulders when he finds him at breakfast, smiling when the other puts his arm snugly around his waist. They walk to class like that, comfortable and no longer worrying about that height difference.
They lay together in silence, entwined fingers resting between their bodies, watching Blaine’s Christmas lights twinkle and talking about everything from their personal philosophies to their favorite characters on Sesame Street.
Kurt lets Blaine kiss his cheek before Sectionals.
When they lose, Kurt acts like it doesn’t bother him. Instead, he forces the rest of the Warblers to celebrate the fact that they came in second, grabbing both of Blaine’s hands and twirling him in a circle when someone puts on Dancing Queen from Mamma Mia!
He thinks that spending time with Blaine and letting the physical aspect of their relationship grow will desensitize him to the other boy’s touch. That’s how it worked with Mercedes; at first linking arms with her was an offered friendship, a sign of trust, but then it turned into a gesture that came automatically. But with Blaine it’s different. Kurt’s skin tingles whenever Blaine brushes against him and his hands start sweating whenever Blaine links their fingers. He feels pleasantly warm whenever they’re in close proximity to each other and he’s almost positive Blaine feels the same way.
In a way, Blaine is teaching him how to be in a physical relationship with someone. Well, in the G-rated sense, that is.
So when Thanksgiving break rolls around and Kurt realizes that he’s about to go four whole days without any of these small touches and innocent kisses on his cheek, he finds himself knocking on Blaine’s door without a clue as to what he’s going to say to the other boy.
It seems his gut instinct is taking good care of him, because when Blaine opens the door, Kurt steps right into his personal bubble without any preamble and kisses him right on the mouth.
It’s a little weird because Kurt has no idea what he’s supposed to do with his hands - the last time he’d kissed someone he’d been focused on keeping her hands off him - but Blaine doesn’t seem to mind. It takes about two seconds for Blaine to move, and then Kurt feels two hands on his waist, keeping him in place, and a mouth moving with his own. And this time he doesn’t feel guilty or self-conscious or worried, he just feels warm and happy and he figures that putting a hand on Blaine’s chest would be okay, and he’s almost got this kissing thing figured out when -
“Get it, Blaine!”
“Freddie!”
your bare feet sliding on the old, wooden floorboards
home just as you left it, but still you’re shaken
like walking into a museum somehow out of time
your childhood’s on the other side of the sprawling divide
too wide
take a silent breath, hold in the change
tell yourself you still live here
take your bags upstairs
it’s the only way you’ll get through today
count the hours, take a shower, wash yourself away
Kurt’s not sure why Blaine insisted on driving him home for Christmas until he gets home. Blaine had told him that the first long break home from boarding school will be the most awkward time of Kurt’s life, but Kurt didn’t believe him.
Then all of a sudden they’re parked in the Hummel driveway and there’s a giant, tacky, blow-up Santa Claus staring at them from the yard.
“What the fucking hell,” comes out of Kurt’s mouth before he can stop it, staring in distaste up at the monstrosity.
“Oh, I don’t know, it looks fine from where I’m sitting,” Blaine insists, smirking and clearly enjoying watching Kurt suffering from shock.
“That wasn’t here when I left after Thanksgiving.”
“I take it you’re not big on Christmas?” Blaine’s tone is teasing and he’s clearly pretending to not remember the time Kurt had explained his atheism in full detail and why he and his father had stopped doing the whole Christmas thing after his mom had died.
“Shut up,” Kurt slaps him on the arm. “Come on, I need to figure out what’s happened to this place.” He leaves his bags in Blaine’s car, opting to hurdle the forgotten snow pile at the beginning of the walkway and go straight up to the front door. He pulls on the handle and realizes that it’s locked.
He knocks, feeling only slightly bitter that he’s locked out of his own home. He turns and feels his expression soften when he realizes Blaine is getting his bags for him. He feels quite proud of himself for packing light - he only has two bags, and small bags at that - but knows that the mandatory school uniforms are to thank for that.
“Thanks,” he says as Blaine takes a spot by his side, fixing the boy with a cheeky grin before turning his attention back onto the door and knocking again.
“Don’t you have a key?” Blaine asks.
“Oh, right,” Kurt had momentarily lost his common sense what with the giant Santa Claus still staring at him. He digs his keyring out of his coat pocket, reveling in the way it jangled with the added weight of his Dalton room key and the (illegal) copy of Blaine’s room key now hanging there. He unlocks the door quickly, opening it and stepping inside, calling out, “Dad? Dad, I’m home!”
Blaine sets his bags down in the entryway, coming to stand at Kurt’s shoulder. Both boys stare into the dark, silent hallway, matching confused frowns on both their faces.
“I thought you called ahead,” Blaine says what Kurt is thinking.
“I did,” Kurt’s tone is not just annoyed now; it is hurt. “I told my dad when we got off and when we’d be here and he promised he’d be here. I think he wants to threaten you with his nonexistent shotgun, but that’s beside the point.”
Kurt toes off his shoes and Blaine follows suit, and they venture into the oddly quiet Hummel household. Blaine holds Kurt’s hand as they peek into the rooms on the main floor, each one dark and silent. A modest-sized Christmas tree with white lights glows softly in the corner of the living room, but that is the only illumination in the entire house.
So Kurt, feeling more than a little forgotten and upset, goes back to the entryway to pick up his bags, Blaine trailing after him. They each grab a bag and Kurt leads Blaine down to his bedroom, flicking on the lights and sucking in his breath at the sight that greets him.
There are two beds positioned at opposite ends of the room, the far bed made and neat. The closer one is devoid of blankets and, upon further investigation, Kurt finds them in a lump on the floor. Finn’s clothes are everywhere and the closet is open and messy. There is a towel lying in the doorway of the bathroom and Kurt can tell from across the room that it’s still wet. The entire room smells like pizza and feet and Kurt is one hundred percent positive that the vintage Farrah Fawcett poster hadn’t been there when he left.
“I take it your room’s not normally this…” Blaine trails off, unable to find the correct adjective.
“Disgusting?” Kurt decides, dropping his bag to the floor and picking up a discarded T-shirt with thumb and forefinger, sniffing it carefully. “Oh, God.” He drops the shirt and coughs.
They take refuge on what’s left of Kurt’s side of the room and Blaine watches while Kurt removes all of his clothes from the now shared closet, folding each piece carefully and stuffing his dresser drawers until they’re jam-packed. He knows he’ll be ironing for weeks to get the folds out, but right now he doesn’t care.
“You okay?” Blaine ventures to ask, voice soft.
“I’m fine,” Kurt snaps, taking his old Cheerios uniform off its hanger and folding it with such ferocity that the fabric made a snapping noise. The snap seemed to bring Kurt back to his senses. “No, I’m not okay.”
“Come here.”
Kurt lets his uniform fall to the floor with the rest of Finn’s junk, sitting heavily on his bed next to Blaine with a whumph. He lets out a sigh, posture slumping in time with it into Blaine’s outstretched arms.
“It’s hard, coming home for the first time,” Blaine says in a soothing voice that sounded almost motherly, “especially if there are changes happening without you. When I went home for my first Christmas break, my mom had started re-painting every room in the house. My room had turned into the storage room for everything she had to take out of wherever they were painting. It was weird, knowing that they had grown so accustomed to me not being around.”
“What did you do?” Kurt asks, knowing Blaine isn’t about to give him a lecture on respecting his family’s wishes and acting like he’s a guest rather than a family member.
“I sucked it up,” Blaine admits. “It was hard, watching all of my stuff get shoved to the back of the bookshelves and drawers, but that’s life. I just had to make sure they remembered that I’m still here, even if I’m not always around.”
“So what do I do?” Kurt needs an answer and isn’t worried about sounding desperate. That’s the thing he loves most about Blaine; the other boy never makes him feel like his troubles are insignificant, even if they are.
“Well, first we shove all of Finn’s stuff back on his side of the room,” Blaine kicks the football that had come to rest at the edge of Kurt’s bed, sending it flying back over to Finn’s side. “Then I’m going to make sure you’re emotionally stable, kiss you silly, and go home. You will then take a shower without first disinfecting the entire bathroom and go about re-organizing that bookshelf that is now overrun with used napkins and video games.”
“Why am I taking a shower?” Kurt asks, confused.
“This will sound stupid, but it’s the best way to re-acquaint yourself with your house,” Blaine presses his forehead against Kurt’s temple, his breath tickling his cheek. “You never realize how much water pressure affects how you shower until you’re somewhere new. You’ve gotten used to the almost unbearably high-pressured showers at Dalton. Normal showers feel like a drizzle in comparison.”
Instead of telling Blaine what a stupid idea he thought that was and how he was definitely not going to interrupt his bathing routine just to shower with all of Finn’s germs, Kurt turns his face, angling his head so he can brush his lips against Blaine’s. The other boy responds immediately, fitting their lips together and releasing Kurt from his protective embrace. One hand finds its way to Kurt’s thigh, stroking figure-eights with his fingers while the other comes to rest along Kurt’s jaw, gently guiding him into a more comfortable angle.
Kurt really likes how Blaine has a tendency to forget he was saying something important when his mouth is otherwise occupied.
What he doesn’t like is how they never get a chance to push all of Finn’s things onto his own side of the room, because Finn himself comes blundering down the stairs at that moment, yelling, “I’m so sorry Kurt I totally forgot to clean and you’re probably really mad at me but I’ll fix it I promise holy shit who’s eating your face, dude?”
He also doesn’t like how Blaine doesn’t get a chance to make sure he’s emotionally stable or kiss him silly - again - now that they have a very confused Finn to answer to. He also doesn’t like how his father is still pretending to own a shotgun.
until we’re sleeping in a squalid dorm room
the lower bunk
we hold each other so tight
cause there’s no room here at all
we have to spoon or we’ll fall
but we refuse; we will not say the bed is too small
for us
Blaine knows Kurt’s had a bad day when he holes up in his room. It means something happened and he’s brooding over it and wants to be left alone. It means he’s probably curled up in a little ball on his bed, facing the wall because he doesn’t want his roommate to see the tears.
It’s basically an open invitation for Blaine to come comfort him.
When Blaine had told him all this, Kurt had simply coughed, then laughed, then sniffed loudly. Then he’d asked the other boy to get him a tissue because his nose is running.
It’s no different today. Kurt just found out that New Directions had beat Vocal Adrenaline. That had started out as good news; he’d celebrated with Mercedes and Quinn over skype about it and made them both promise to take pictures of everything.
But then there had been an offhand comment that he should have let slide. It’s not like Mercedes had meant him to get offended. She’d just been joking around with how great it would be for all of them to be in the big city together, that’s all. He didn’t have to jump on the defensive and tell them that he’s perfectly happy here.
He hadn’t meant that to be an open invitation for them both to try coaxing him back. And he knows that none of them had wanted it to turn out the way it had, but they didn’t seriously expect him to not get upset when they tried telling him that you’ve made your point by now, so just come back already, did they? Especially when they paired it with it’s not like you weren’t planning on going with whoever got to Nationals in the first place, anyway.
“It’s not a free ticket to New York City,” Kurt tells his wall bitterly.
“No, it’s not,” Blaine’s voice answers. Kurt doesn’t jump anymore. At this point it’s almost expected that Blaine will come find him.
“You don’t even know what I’m talking about,” Kurt says as his bedsprings creak and Blaine’s arms circle his waist.
“I’m sure you’ll tell me eventually,” Blaine chuckles into the back of Kurt’s neck, positioning himself so that his body matches every bend of Kurt’s. It’s almost a shame that this is their designated comforting position, because Kurt could see quite a few possibilities of where this could go in another situation.
They communicate perfectly like this, however. Kurt can feel everything Blaine does. He can feel him tense up when he explains the problem, can feel his heavy, angry breathing. Blaine’s arms always tighten when Kurt finishes, as if wishing he could keep him away from all the harm.
And, as always, Blaine holds Kurt even after he’s done crying. He shushes him when he tries to apologize, telling him that it’s okay and that he loves to listen.
“I’m here to help you, no matter what,” Blaine assures him, giving him a squeeze and pressing a kiss to his neck.
“Will you stay with me tonight?” Kurt finds himself asking. His face flushes and he tenses up, quickly adding, “Not that I’m asking you to have sex. Because I’m not. I just don’t want to be alone.”
And because Blaine is Blaine, he doesn’t even make a joke about sex or mention that Kurt has a roommate or that he’s probably going to get in trouble for not checking into his own room before curfew. He just kisses Kurt again and says, “Of course.”
They change out of their uniforms, both blushing identical shades of red and averting their eyes until they both have pants back on. Kurt tries not to think about how he kind of really likes the way Blaine looks wearing a pair of his sweatpants and a rather form-fitting undershirt.
The bed is warm from their body heat, but the sheets underneath have a slight chilling bite. Kurt finds himself curling towards Blaine’s body for the heat as well as the company. They try lying on their backs with their fingers entwined but realize quickly that if they fall asleep like that, one of them is going to fall out of bed.
This time Kurt turns over, pressing his back against the wall and wrapping a gentle arm around Blaine’s waist. His bare arm is met with a thin strip of skin between the hem of Blaine’s shirt and the waistband of Kurt’s sweatpants, causing his whole arm to tingle. When he pulls Blaine closer, pressing their bodies together, he realizes that he has a matching strip of bare skin across his waist. This sudden contact makes his stomach buzz happily.
“I can feel your heart running a marathon in there,” Blaine whispers, covering Kurt’s arm with his own and lacing their fingers together. He starts humming a tune Kurt recognizes as the theme from the Harry Potter movies, and he has to resist the urge to laugh.
Dorkishness of the song choice aside, it does its job. Kurt feels himself relaxing and then Blaine’s humming stops, he says, “There. All better.”
They fall asleep pressed together, breathing in unison and dreaming about each other.
but right here, right now somehow you’re sitting here
i may not ever catch my breath no matter how i try
and i may never understand how every single day we breathe
twenty-three thousand times
because watching your chest rise and fall
the numbers don’t add up
Kurt likes watching Blaine sleep.
While Blaine’s all for relaxing and listening to the world around him, he can get unbearable chatty at times. That, and he’s constantly running around before and after school starts, seeing how he’s involved in practically every club offered at Dalton.
When Blaine sleeps, he’s peaceful. His breaths are slow and deep and hypnotizing, and Kurt finds himself breathing in unison whenever he watches for too long. When Blaine twitches, he interrupts this regular pattern of breaths and makes Kurt want to reach out and touch him, comforting him while he sleeps.
That’s exactly what he does when Blaine manages to fall asleep in his lap.
They’d just been sitting together, talking whenever inspiration struck one of them, but mostly just taking the time to be together without words to do it for them. Blaine was half-lying half-sitting with his head resting against Kurt’s side, but then his head had slipped onto Kurt’s lap after he’d fallen asleep.
So Kurt starts to trace Blaine’s face with his fingertips. He starts at his hairline, running down along his jaw and up across his lips. Those lips feel so familiar, and Kurt nearly pulls his back as he manages to bend over and brush their lips together. Blaine makes a sleepy, contented noise that tugs at the corners of Kurt’s mouth.
His fingers find their way into Blaine’s hair, mussing it as he massages the boy’s scalp. He feels the tiniest hints of dry skin under his fingertips, reminding him that his boyfriend is human, no matter how perfect he may seem.
Blaine doesn’t twitch once, and when he wakes up he apologizes “for conking out on you like that.”
“It’s okay,” Kurt presses a quick kiss to Blaine’s lips. “I like watching you sleep.”
this is how it feels to fall in love
this is how it feels to fall
the weakness, the sadness
the sirens, the madness
the pounding in your chest
like you’re racing the street in an ambulance
They don’t actually have sex that one time, even though the entire student population of Dalton is convinced they did.
That had been the original plan, if they’re being honest. They had drawn straws to see who would have to go out and buy the condoms and Blaine had bribed Freddie to stay out of the dorm that night. Both had showered and picked out their underwear carefully, but it was all for naught.
They both know something’s off when Kurt knocks on the door rather than barging in like he usually does. Blaine answers it, confused, but he lets it slide without comment. He awkwardly shows Kurt to the bed, telling him to sit down. Kurt notices that the Christmas lights are turned off for once and Blaine has opted to turn on his desk lamp instead, dimly illuminating the room in a yellow-y glow.
Things are tense and awkward and both of them know it’s because Freddie’s probably told everyone what’s going on, which means their next-dorm-neighbors are probably trying to listen in.
Kurt doesn’t want to be the one to say something, but if Blaine keeps twitching like that he just might blurt it out anyway.
Thankfully Blaine gets up and turns his iPod on, and an instrumental piece from one of the Harry Potter movies starts playing.
“I am not having sex with you to Harry Potter music,” Kurt says automatically, making Blaine laugh.
“Then dance with me instead,” Blaine suggests, holding out a hand.
“Only if you put the Christmas light back on,” Kurt demands, standing up and putting a finger threateningly on the switch of Blaine’s desk lamp. Grinning, Blaine ducks under his bed to plug the string of lights in, and the room is once again practically spinning with color.
“That’s better,” Kurt says as he switches the desk lamp off. Blaine takes his hand as he rights himself, pulling Kurt close and settling his arms around the other’s waist.
Kurt makes a tutting noise.
“So I’m the girl?” he asks, smirking. But he puts his arms around Blaine’s neck anyway, letting the shorter boy lead him in time to the (incredibly dorky) music.
They end up leaning comfortably against each other as they sway around the room. Their heads are pressed together and their eyes are closed, and Kurt is barely listening to the music. He’s too busy feeling Blaine against him, wondering if this dance in a dorm room was really going to define their relationship.
His stomach clenches.
“I don’t want to do this,” he admits, still holding Blaine tight against him.
There is a small pause, then, “Me either.”
Their grips on each other slacken and they each take a step away, Kurt’s hands trailing down Blaine’s arms to take his hands.
“It’s not the right time,” Blaine says evenly, to which Kurt nods in agreement. “And I think today’s society idealizes a sexual relationship so much that we all are fooled into thinking that sex is the only way you can be fully intimate with another person. That’s not true at all, of course. I feel safe with you and I trust you completely. Isn’t that what’s important?”
Kurt didn’t know how much he needed to hear the words safe and trust until they left Blaine’s lips. He knew that he felt safe, but knowing that another boy felt safe with him was truly what he’s been waiting to hear since he’d learned what the word ‘homosexual’ meant.
“Yes,” is all he says, but that one little word is enough to tell Blaine that he feels the exact same way. Kurt knows Blaine understands, because he can see it in his face. He takes that face into his hands, pressing their foreheads together and saying, “I love you.”
Blaine says it back.
let’s go
anywhere
say the word and i’m already there
run away with me
Fandom: Glee
Written: November, 2010
Rating: PG-13
Words: 5900
Summary: Kurt and Blaine's relationship, as set to music by Kait Kerrigan and Brian Lowdermilk.
Notes: All lyrics are links to videos of the songs. You should probably watch them, because the music is amazing.
------
when we last talked we were lying on our backs
looking up at the sky through the ceiling
i used to lie like that alone out on the driveway
trying to read the greek upon the stars
the alphabet of feeling
He’s been at Dalton for three weeks and he’s become a regular decorative ornament in Blaine and Freddie’s room. The two have taken him under their wings - both metaphorically and literally - teaching him the ins and outs of the school in addition to trapping him under their arms whenever they feel like reminding him that they are friends.
The impromptu jam sessions are just an added bonus to his continued presence in their room.
Freddie plays guitar while Blaine and Kurt sit across from him on Blaine’s bed, singing and dancing with their hands. It’s a free and relaxed atmosphere, the kind of thing New Directions did a grand total of once. Kurt thinks that maybe, if the McKinley glee club had done this from the start, they might function more as a real team.
It probably would have given him a reason to stay, too, he admits to Blaine bitterly after a particularly disappointing phone call with Mercedes.
Blaine just puts an arm around his shoulders - which is a little awkward with their height difference - and walks him back to his room. Freddie’s already sleeping, but Blaine lets Kurt lay down on his bed, poking him until he scoots over so they both have room.
They just lie there, listening Freddie’s half-snores and watching the Christmas lights Blaine has strung up blink different colors. Kurt’s pressed against the wall and their arms are touching and he’s starting to feel warm in all the right ways.
Blaine turns his head and his breath is warm across Kurt’s ear when he asks, “What do you want out of life?”
Kurt’s voice is breathy and even more high-pitched than usual when he whispers back, “What?” He’s not quite sure why Blaine wants to talk about something like that right now when they could end up waking Freddie or when he should be back in his own room because it’s curfew in a half hour and he’ll get in trouble if he’s not back in time.
“What do you want out of life?” Blaine repeats. “I want to know about your dreams and plans. And not the superficial ones where we all say happiness, wealth, and New York City.”
So Kurt thinks. They lay in silence and he watches the lights flash across the ceiling, dimming and flaring and sparking. He watches the colors change from cold blue to hot red and bright yellow and calming green. He finds himself distracted, wishing there was a purple light, because he wore purple on October 20th and now that color actually means something and it’s then that it hits him.
“I want to make a difference,” he says softly, speaking to the dancing lights.
“Don’t we all?” Blaine challenges, like he always does when Kurt tries to answer one of those open-ended questions.
“No, I’m serious,” Kurt continues, knowing Blaine won’t drop it until he’s satisfied with Kurt’s answer. “I’m the only openly gay kid at McKinley. Well, I was, but that’s beside the point. I can make a difference in Lima by not shutting up. Going to a new school doesn’t have to change that, right?”
“And how are you going to do that?”
“NOM has a tour for marriage, or whatever it’s called, and they’re coming to Lima.” This particular event has been at the forefront of Kurt’s mind for a while. “I can go to their event and talk to people. Not the NOM people, but my neighbors. People who know me. I can tell them why it’s wrong.”
“And I can come too,” Blaine decided, inviting himself.
“And you can come too,” Kurt agreed.
They both turned their heads to look at each other at the same time, faces knocking together.
“Ow,” Kurt turned his face back up to the ceiling, a hand going to the spot near his temple that had bumped against Blaine.
“Close quarters,” Blaine reminded them, one head-knock too late.
Henry and Mudge, Henry and Mudge
Fooling around and having fun
Henry and Mudge, Henry and Mudge
Nobody is better if you’re running or joking or just coming through
Stuck together with crazy glue
Kurt hadn’t hesitated when he saw a sign on the bulletin board advertising for Latin tutoring. McKinley hadn’t offered Dalton’s required dead language, so he was quite behind. It was easy enough, repeating Caecilius est in foro over and over, but he knew from experience that it would just get tougher from there.
Father Mac, their resident priest and Latin teacher, assigns Blaine to be his tutor the next day.
That was how the two boys end up quoting Harry Potter at each other, lying upside down on Blaine and Freddie’s beds with Red Vines sticking out of their mouths.
“But we’re not stupid. We know we’re called Gred and Forge,” Kurt quots in an impeccable British accent. Blaine starts giggling, taking a bite of his Red Vine and then pointing it at his bookshelf.
“Accio Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” he commands. Both boys stare at the book hopefully for a full four seconds before laughing again.
“I can’t tell you how mad I was they screwed up the pronunciation of that spell in the movie,” Kurt says thoughtfully. “Everyone knows it’s as-ee-oh, not ack-ee-oh.”
“Daniel Radcliffe clearly never listened to Jim Dale,” Blaine shaks his head.
“I know, right!” Kurt exclaims, ripping his own Red Vine out from between his teeth. “Jim Dale is a god sent down from audiobook heaven to deliver beautifully narrated books upon mankind. Why he was never cast in the movies is beyond me.”
There is more laughter, then Blaine interrupts the sugar-induced Potter nostalgia by saying, “Right, so, Latin.” Kurt groans, Red Vine back between his teeth.
“At least tell me I’ll learn more than Grumio est in culina by tomorrow. Please.” Kurt is fed up with the childish attempt to learn a dead language through reading stories about long-gone historical characters that may or may not really exist.
“Just hang in there, okay?” Blaine reaches across the gap between the beds to poke Kurt’s forehead. “In a year you’ll get to learn all about Barbillus and his jewels and you’ll have read about enough failed attempts at charming women to realize that every single Roman was clearly banging his male slaves instead.”
Kurt raises an eyebrow, an expression that was very funny upside-down.
“I’m totally not kidding. About either one of those.”
“And here I thought I’d be quoting scriptures and saying ancient prayers instead.”
“That happens later. Senior year you actually speak in Latin during mass.”
“Sounds great.”
“It’s not all that bad,” Blaine assures him. “I’m not Catholic either. All you have to do is memorize the words. And mandatory mass isn’t bad. The multiple lights make it super easy to make shadow puppets behind the pews.”
“I swear you’re really an eleven year old,” Kurt says fondly, shaking his head.
“Does that mean I get my Hogwarts letter?”
“If I say yes will you teach me some fun Latin words instead?”
“You mean like catapultam habeo and magister mundi sum?”
“What do those mean?”
“I’m sure you can figure it out,” Blaine grins at him, tapping the forgotten Latin textbook with a finger.
“Or you could just tell me?” Kurt asks hopefully, grinning back.
“Nah, it’s more fun to keep you guessing,” Blaine rights himself, sitting and opening the Latin textbook up to the marked page. “Now, let’s work on memorizing your first set of vocab words.”
“You mean all the fun words like est, in, and et?”
“Come on, you’ve gotta start somewhere,” Blaine motions for Kurt to sit up. “If you’re good I’ll tell you how to say ‘make me’.”
“Been there, done that,” Kurt waves a hand after he righted himself. “One of the seniors told me.”
“Aw, but that’s the best one,” Blaine’s face falls the tiniest bit. “And I was so looking forward to saying fac me just to see what you’d do.”
Kurt falls off the bed.
i don’t know why I tremble
when you reach for my hand
i didn’t know how to love
until you swept me away
say the word
and i just might listen
Kurt never realized just how guarded he had become about physically expressing his feelings until coming to Dalton. Sure, he would link arms with Mercedes and Quinn and Tina and sometimes Rachel - when he was feeling in a particularly good mood - but the second one of the McKinley boys reached out to touch him, he shied away. It was a knee jerk reaction at this point, what with all the bullying that had come with physical contact.
But here at Dalton, everyone was all over each other all the time. High-fives and man hugs after a job well done, no matter what the job had been, were completely normal. Good friends would actually hug properly and spontaneous dogpiles were considered an everyday occurrence. When there wasn’t enough space in the common room, it was normal for boys to squeeze into chairs together or lean against someone’s legs when they claimed a spot on the floor.
Dalton Academy is the most touchy-feely place Kurt has ever been to.
And Blaine is probably the most touchy-feely out of all of them.
Kurt isn’t used to platonic male relationships involving physical contact, so he can be forgiven for not warming up to Blaine’s openness right away. It took him all of two weeks to allow himself to put an arm around Blaine’s waist when the other boy casually dropped his own around Kurt’s shoulders. (Although that particular aspect of their physical relationship might have to change, since Blaine has to awkwardly tiptoe around if they start walking like that.)
And Kurt decides that having guy friends is really weird, regardless of how nice it is. He’s suddenly playing video games and cheering when someone blows a zombie’s head off and plugging his ears and going “lalalalala” whenever Freddie talks about everything he wants to do to the girl in the bikini. He’s learned that it’s pointless to do his hair because the boys at Dalton love noogies, and since he’s small and wiry, he’s easy to trap under an arm.
If having boy friends is weird enough, it’s nothing compared to what happens when Blaine blurts out one night that he thinks Kurt is positively breathtaking and he may or may not have been contemplating what it would be like to kiss him since they first met. Because then he and Blaine suddenly aren’t just friends anymore, they’re friends with a mutual attraction - and unbearable sexual tension, according to Freddie - who both admit that they’re not quite sure if actually starting a relationship is the best thing for either one of them.
Kurt feels a lot like Quinn whenever this happens, since he forced the blonde to explain her reasoning for wanting to be single when she confessed this desire over the summer. Quinn had put it short and sweet: “I have too much going on in my life to worry about one more thing. I’m confident enough to not need someone telling me I’m special, so why bother?”
Kurt’s too busy juggling all these new classes he has to take, Warblers practice, and daily sad phone calls from his McKinley… acquaintances… to even think about starting something with Blaine. And Blaine’s a gentleman; after blurting out his confession, he had backtracked almost immediately.
“It’s not that I’m trying to ask you out or something. I just wanted you to know. You just moved to a new school and you’ve had to deal with getting picked on all your life. This is huge for you. It’s a chance to start over. I just wanted you to know that there is someone who thinks you’re worth all the trouble and that he’ll still be here when you’re ready.”
He lets Blaine hold his hand the next time they go for a walk.
He puts his arm around Blaine’s shoulders when he finds him at breakfast, smiling when the other puts his arm snugly around his waist. They walk to class like that, comfortable and no longer worrying about that height difference.
They lay together in silence, entwined fingers resting between their bodies, watching Blaine’s Christmas lights twinkle and talking about everything from their personal philosophies to their favorite characters on Sesame Street.
Kurt lets Blaine kiss his cheek before Sectionals.
When they lose, Kurt acts like it doesn’t bother him. Instead, he forces the rest of the Warblers to celebrate the fact that they came in second, grabbing both of Blaine’s hands and twirling him in a circle when someone puts on Dancing Queen from Mamma Mia!
He thinks that spending time with Blaine and letting the physical aspect of their relationship grow will desensitize him to the other boy’s touch. That’s how it worked with Mercedes; at first linking arms with her was an offered friendship, a sign of trust, but then it turned into a gesture that came automatically. But with Blaine it’s different. Kurt’s skin tingles whenever Blaine brushes against him and his hands start sweating whenever Blaine links their fingers. He feels pleasantly warm whenever they’re in close proximity to each other and he’s almost positive Blaine feels the same way.
In a way, Blaine is teaching him how to be in a physical relationship with someone. Well, in the G-rated sense, that is.
So when Thanksgiving break rolls around and Kurt realizes that he’s about to go four whole days without any of these small touches and innocent kisses on his cheek, he finds himself knocking on Blaine’s door without a clue as to what he’s going to say to the other boy.
It seems his gut instinct is taking good care of him, because when Blaine opens the door, Kurt steps right into his personal bubble without any preamble and kisses him right on the mouth.
It’s a little weird because Kurt has no idea what he’s supposed to do with his hands - the last time he’d kissed someone he’d been focused on keeping her hands off him - but Blaine doesn’t seem to mind. It takes about two seconds for Blaine to move, and then Kurt feels two hands on his waist, keeping him in place, and a mouth moving with his own. And this time he doesn’t feel guilty or self-conscious or worried, he just feels warm and happy and he figures that putting a hand on Blaine’s chest would be okay, and he’s almost got this kissing thing figured out when -
“Get it, Blaine!”
“Freddie!”
your bare feet sliding on the old, wooden floorboards
home just as you left it, but still you’re shaken
like walking into a museum somehow out of time
your childhood’s on the other side of the sprawling divide
too wide
take a silent breath, hold in the change
tell yourself you still live here
take your bags upstairs
it’s the only way you’ll get through today
count the hours, take a shower, wash yourself away
Kurt’s not sure why Blaine insisted on driving him home for Christmas until he gets home. Blaine had told him that the first long break home from boarding school will be the most awkward time of Kurt’s life, but Kurt didn’t believe him.
Then all of a sudden they’re parked in the Hummel driveway and there’s a giant, tacky, blow-up Santa Claus staring at them from the yard.
“What the fucking hell,” comes out of Kurt’s mouth before he can stop it, staring in distaste up at the monstrosity.
“Oh, I don’t know, it looks fine from where I’m sitting,” Blaine insists, smirking and clearly enjoying watching Kurt suffering from shock.
“That wasn’t here when I left after Thanksgiving.”
“I take it you’re not big on Christmas?” Blaine’s tone is teasing and he’s clearly pretending to not remember the time Kurt had explained his atheism in full detail and why he and his father had stopped doing the whole Christmas thing after his mom had died.
“Shut up,” Kurt slaps him on the arm. “Come on, I need to figure out what’s happened to this place.” He leaves his bags in Blaine’s car, opting to hurdle the forgotten snow pile at the beginning of the walkway and go straight up to the front door. He pulls on the handle and realizes that it’s locked.
He knocks, feeling only slightly bitter that he’s locked out of his own home. He turns and feels his expression soften when he realizes Blaine is getting his bags for him. He feels quite proud of himself for packing light - he only has two bags, and small bags at that - but knows that the mandatory school uniforms are to thank for that.
“Thanks,” he says as Blaine takes a spot by his side, fixing the boy with a cheeky grin before turning his attention back onto the door and knocking again.
“Don’t you have a key?” Blaine asks.
“Oh, right,” Kurt had momentarily lost his common sense what with the giant Santa Claus still staring at him. He digs his keyring out of his coat pocket, reveling in the way it jangled with the added weight of his Dalton room key and the (illegal) copy of Blaine’s room key now hanging there. He unlocks the door quickly, opening it and stepping inside, calling out, “Dad? Dad, I’m home!”
Blaine sets his bags down in the entryway, coming to stand at Kurt’s shoulder. Both boys stare into the dark, silent hallway, matching confused frowns on both their faces.
“I thought you called ahead,” Blaine says what Kurt is thinking.
“I did,” Kurt’s tone is not just annoyed now; it is hurt. “I told my dad when we got off and when we’d be here and he promised he’d be here. I think he wants to threaten you with his nonexistent shotgun, but that’s beside the point.”
Kurt toes off his shoes and Blaine follows suit, and they venture into the oddly quiet Hummel household. Blaine holds Kurt’s hand as they peek into the rooms on the main floor, each one dark and silent. A modest-sized Christmas tree with white lights glows softly in the corner of the living room, but that is the only illumination in the entire house.
So Kurt, feeling more than a little forgotten and upset, goes back to the entryway to pick up his bags, Blaine trailing after him. They each grab a bag and Kurt leads Blaine down to his bedroom, flicking on the lights and sucking in his breath at the sight that greets him.
There are two beds positioned at opposite ends of the room, the far bed made and neat. The closer one is devoid of blankets and, upon further investigation, Kurt finds them in a lump on the floor. Finn’s clothes are everywhere and the closet is open and messy. There is a towel lying in the doorway of the bathroom and Kurt can tell from across the room that it’s still wet. The entire room smells like pizza and feet and Kurt is one hundred percent positive that the vintage Farrah Fawcett poster hadn’t been there when he left.
“I take it your room’s not normally this…” Blaine trails off, unable to find the correct adjective.
“Disgusting?” Kurt decides, dropping his bag to the floor and picking up a discarded T-shirt with thumb and forefinger, sniffing it carefully. “Oh, God.” He drops the shirt and coughs.
They take refuge on what’s left of Kurt’s side of the room and Blaine watches while Kurt removes all of his clothes from the now shared closet, folding each piece carefully and stuffing his dresser drawers until they’re jam-packed. He knows he’ll be ironing for weeks to get the folds out, but right now he doesn’t care.
“You okay?” Blaine ventures to ask, voice soft.
“I’m fine,” Kurt snaps, taking his old Cheerios uniform off its hanger and folding it with such ferocity that the fabric made a snapping noise. The snap seemed to bring Kurt back to his senses. “No, I’m not okay.”
“Come here.”
Kurt lets his uniform fall to the floor with the rest of Finn’s junk, sitting heavily on his bed next to Blaine with a whumph. He lets out a sigh, posture slumping in time with it into Blaine’s outstretched arms.
“It’s hard, coming home for the first time,” Blaine says in a soothing voice that sounded almost motherly, “especially if there are changes happening without you. When I went home for my first Christmas break, my mom had started re-painting every room in the house. My room had turned into the storage room for everything she had to take out of wherever they were painting. It was weird, knowing that they had grown so accustomed to me not being around.”
“What did you do?” Kurt asks, knowing Blaine isn’t about to give him a lecture on respecting his family’s wishes and acting like he’s a guest rather than a family member.
“I sucked it up,” Blaine admits. “It was hard, watching all of my stuff get shoved to the back of the bookshelves and drawers, but that’s life. I just had to make sure they remembered that I’m still here, even if I’m not always around.”
“So what do I do?” Kurt needs an answer and isn’t worried about sounding desperate. That’s the thing he loves most about Blaine; the other boy never makes him feel like his troubles are insignificant, even if they are.
“Well, first we shove all of Finn’s stuff back on his side of the room,” Blaine kicks the football that had come to rest at the edge of Kurt’s bed, sending it flying back over to Finn’s side. “Then I’m going to make sure you’re emotionally stable, kiss you silly, and go home. You will then take a shower without first disinfecting the entire bathroom and go about re-organizing that bookshelf that is now overrun with used napkins and video games.”
“Why am I taking a shower?” Kurt asks, confused.
“This will sound stupid, but it’s the best way to re-acquaint yourself with your house,” Blaine presses his forehead against Kurt’s temple, his breath tickling his cheek. “You never realize how much water pressure affects how you shower until you’re somewhere new. You’ve gotten used to the almost unbearably high-pressured showers at Dalton. Normal showers feel like a drizzle in comparison.”
Instead of telling Blaine what a stupid idea he thought that was and how he was definitely not going to interrupt his bathing routine just to shower with all of Finn’s germs, Kurt turns his face, angling his head so he can brush his lips against Blaine’s. The other boy responds immediately, fitting their lips together and releasing Kurt from his protective embrace. One hand finds its way to Kurt’s thigh, stroking figure-eights with his fingers while the other comes to rest along Kurt’s jaw, gently guiding him into a more comfortable angle.
Kurt really likes how Blaine has a tendency to forget he was saying something important when his mouth is otherwise occupied.
What he doesn’t like is how they never get a chance to push all of Finn’s things onto his own side of the room, because Finn himself comes blundering down the stairs at that moment, yelling, “I’m so sorry Kurt I totally forgot to clean and you’re probably really mad at me but I’ll fix it I promise holy shit who’s eating your face, dude?”
He also doesn’t like how Blaine doesn’t get a chance to make sure he’s emotionally stable or kiss him silly - again - now that they have a very confused Finn to answer to. He also doesn’t like how his father is still pretending to own a shotgun.
until we’re sleeping in a squalid dorm room
the lower bunk
we hold each other so tight
cause there’s no room here at all
we have to spoon or we’ll fall
but we refuse; we will not say the bed is too small
for us
Blaine knows Kurt’s had a bad day when he holes up in his room. It means something happened and he’s brooding over it and wants to be left alone. It means he’s probably curled up in a little ball on his bed, facing the wall because he doesn’t want his roommate to see the tears.
It’s basically an open invitation for Blaine to come comfort him.
When Blaine had told him all this, Kurt had simply coughed, then laughed, then sniffed loudly. Then he’d asked the other boy to get him a tissue because his nose is running.
It’s no different today. Kurt just found out that New Directions had beat Vocal Adrenaline. That had started out as good news; he’d celebrated with Mercedes and Quinn over skype about it and made them both promise to take pictures of everything.
But then there had been an offhand comment that he should have let slide. It’s not like Mercedes had meant him to get offended. She’d just been joking around with how great it would be for all of them to be in the big city together, that’s all. He didn’t have to jump on the defensive and tell them that he’s perfectly happy here.
He hadn’t meant that to be an open invitation for them both to try coaxing him back. And he knows that none of them had wanted it to turn out the way it had, but they didn’t seriously expect him to not get upset when they tried telling him that you’ve made your point by now, so just come back already, did they? Especially when they paired it with it’s not like you weren’t planning on going with whoever got to Nationals in the first place, anyway.
“It’s not a free ticket to New York City,” Kurt tells his wall bitterly.
“No, it’s not,” Blaine’s voice answers. Kurt doesn’t jump anymore. At this point it’s almost expected that Blaine will come find him.
“You don’t even know what I’m talking about,” Kurt says as his bedsprings creak and Blaine’s arms circle his waist.
“I’m sure you’ll tell me eventually,” Blaine chuckles into the back of Kurt’s neck, positioning himself so that his body matches every bend of Kurt’s. It’s almost a shame that this is their designated comforting position, because Kurt could see quite a few possibilities of where this could go in another situation.
They communicate perfectly like this, however. Kurt can feel everything Blaine does. He can feel him tense up when he explains the problem, can feel his heavy, angry breathing. Blaine’s arms always tighten when Kurt finishes, as if wishing he could keep him away from all the harm.
And, as always, Blaine holds Kurt even after he’s done crying. He shushes him when he tries to apologize, telling him that it’s okay and that he loves to listen.
“I’m here to help you, no matter what,” Blaine assures him, giving him a squeeze and pressing a kiss to his neck.
“Will you stay with me tonight?” Kurt finds himself asking. His face flushes and he tenses up, quickly adding, “Not that I’m asking you to have sex. Because I’m not. I just don’t want to be alone.”
And because Blaine is Blaine, he doesn’t even make a joke about sex or mention that Kurt has a roommate or that he’s probably going to get in trouble for not checking into his own room before curfew. He just kisses Kurt again and says, “Of course.”
They change out of their uniforms, both blushing identical shades of red and averting their eyes until they both have pants back on. Kurt tries not to think about how he kind of really likes the way Blaine looks wearing a pair of his sweatpants and a rather form-fitting undershirt.
The bed is warm from their body heat, but the sheets underneath have a slight chilling bite. Kurt finds himself curling towards Blaine’s body for the heat as well as the company. They try lying on their backs with their fingers entwined but realize quickly that if they fall asleep like that, one of them is going to fall out of bed.
This time Kurt turns over, pressing his back against the wall and wrapping a gentle arm around Blaine’s waist. His bare arm is met with a thin strip of skin between the hem of Blaine’s shirt and the waistband of Kurt’s sweatpants, causing his whole arm to tingle. When he pulls Blaine closer, pressing their bodies together, he realizes that he has a matching strip of bare skin across his waist. This sudden contact makes his stomach buzz happily.
“I can feel your heart running a marathon in there,” Blaine whispers, covering Kurt’s arm with his own and lacing their fingers together. He starts humming a tune Kurt recognizes as the theme from the Harry Potter movies, and he has to resist the urge to laugh.
Dorkishness of the song choice aside, it does its job. Kurt feels himself relaxing and then Blaine’s humming stops, he says, “There. All better.”
They fall asleep pressed together, breathing in unison and dreaming about each other.
but right here, right now somehow you’re sitting here
i may not ever catch my breath no matter how i try
and i may never understand how every single day we breathe
twenty-three thousand times
because watching your chest rise and fall
the numbers don’t add up
Kurt likes watching Blaine sleep.
While Blaine’s all for relaxing and listening to the world around him, he can get unbearable chatty at times. That, and he’s constantly running around before and after school starts, seeing how he’s involved in practically every club offered at Dalton.
When Blaine sleeps, he’s peaceful. His breaths are slow and deep and hypnotizing, and Kurt finds himself breathing in unison whenever he watches for too long. When Blaine twitches, he interrupts this regular pattern of breaths and makes Kurt want to reach out and touch him, comforting him while he sleeps.
That’s exactly what he does when Blaine manages to fall asleep in his lap.
They’d just been sitting together, talking whenever inspiration struck one of them, but mostly just taking the time to be together without words to do it for them. Blaine was half-lying half-sitting with his head resting against Kurt’s side, but then his head had slipped onto Kurt’s lap after he’d fallen asleep.
So Kurt starts to trace Blaine’s face with his fingertips. He starts at his hairline, running down along his jaw and up across his lips. Those lips feel so familiar, and Kurt nearly pulls his back as he manages to bend over and brush their lips together. Blaine makes a sleepy, contented noise that tugs at the corners of Kurt’s mouth.
His fingers find their way into Blaine’s hair, mussing it as he massages the boy’s scalp. He feels the tiniest hints of dry skin under his fingertips, reminding him that his boyfriend is human, no matter how perfect he may seem.
Blaine doesn’t twitch once, and when he wakes up he apologizes “for conking out on you like that.”
“It’s okay,” Kurt presses a quick kiss to Blaine’s lips. “I like watching you sleep.”
this is how it feels to fall in love
this is how it feels to fall
the weakness, the sadness
the sirens, the madness
the pounding in your chest
like you’re racing the street in an ambulance
They don’t actually have sex that one time, even though the entire student population of Dalton is convinced they did.
That had been the original plan, if they’re being honest. They had drawn straws to see who would have to go out and buy the condoms and Blaine had bribed Freddie to stay out of the dorm that night. Both had showered and picked out their underwear carefully, but it was all for naught.
They both know something’s off when Kurt knocks on the door rather than barging in like he usually does. Blaine answers it, confused, but he lets it slide without comment. He awkwardly shows Kurt to the bed, telling him to sit down. Kurt notices that the Christmas lights are turned off for once and Blaine has opted to turn on his desk lamp instead, dimly illuminating the room in a yellow-y glow.
Things are tense and awkward and both of them know it’s because Freddie’s probably told everyone what’s going on, which means their next-dorm-neighbors are probably trying to listen in.
Kurt doesn’t want to be the one to say something, but if Blaine keeps twitching like that he just might blurt it out anyway.
Thankfully Blaine gets up and turns his iPod on, and an instrumental piece from one of the Harry Potter movies starts playing.
“I am not having sex with you to Harry Potter music,” Kurt says automatically, making Blaine laugh.
“Then dance with me instead,” Blaine suggests, holding out a hand.
“Only if you put the Christmas light back on,” Kurt demands, standing up and putting a finger threateningly on the switch of Blaine’s desk lamp. Grinning, Blaine ducks under his bed to plug the string of lights in, and the room is once again practically spinning with color.
“That’s better,” Kurt says as he switches the desk lamp off. Blaine takes his hand as he rights himself, pulling Kurt close and settling his arms around the other’s waist.
Kurt makes a tutting noise.
“So I’m the girl?” he asks, smirking. But he puts his arms around Blaine’s neck anyway, letting the shorter boy lead him in time to the (incredibly dorky) music.
They end up leaning comfortably against each other as they sway around the room. Their heads are pressed together and their eyes are closed, and Kurt is barely listening to the music. He’s too busy feeling Blaine against him, wondering if this dance in a dorm room was really going to define their relationship.
His stomach clenches.
“I don’t want to do this,” he admits, still holding Blaine tight against him.
There is a small pause, then, “Me either.”
Their grips on each other slacken and they each take a step away, Kurt’s hands trailing down Blaine’s arms to take his hands.
“It’s not the right time,” Blaine says evenly, to which Kurt nods in agreement. “And I think today’s society idealizes a sexual relationship so much that we all are fooled into thinking that sex is the only way you can be fully intimate with another person. That’s not true at all, of course. I feel safe with you and I trust you completely. Isn’t that what’s important?”
Kurt didn’t know how much he needed to hear the words safe and trust until they left Blaine’s lips. He knew that he felt safe, but knowing that another boy felt safe with him was truly what he’s been waiting to hear since he’d learned what the word ‘homosexual’ meant.
“Yes,” is all he says, but that one little word is enough to tell Blaine that he feels the exact same way. Kurt knows Blaine understands, because he can see it in his face. He takes that face into his hands, pressing their foreheads together and saying, “I love you.”
Blaine says it back.
let’s go
anywhere
say the word and i’m already there
run away with me