Kurt/Blaine: Precipice (2/?)
Title: Precipice (2/?)
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine
Rating: PG-13 overall.
Word Count: ~2400
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: Mentions of bullying.
Summary: Blaine is a new student at McKinley. Kurt is the star of the Cheerios. When Kurt is failing AP Chemistry, Coach Sylvester hires Blaine to tutor Kurt in order to ensure that he earns a grade that will allow him to stay on the squad. What will happen when the supposed nerd and the head cheerleader are forced to spend time together?
A/N: I started planning this fic when the very first Nerd!Blaine/Cheerio!Kurt gifset started floating around Tumblr. I've very much put my own spin on this, taking plenty of liberties especially when it comes to the definition of the word nerd. I hope you all enjoy this fic! <3 A million thanks to my wonderful beta
gleekto. :D
It’s going to be a better day today.
For once, Blaine feels like the mantra might actually be working. Every time he turns a corner or exits a classroom, he braces, muscles clenching, breath stopped up in his throat, just waiting for the rush of cold and humiliation. But it doesn’t come.
It’s Thursday, so it’s not supposed to happen. Never once has he been slushied on a Thursday, but as the previous morning had proved, anything is possible. That’s a phrase typically intended to bring about inspiration but now all it’s doing is filling him with a sick sense of prickling fear.
“I loved your song,” Mercedes says to him as they leave the choir room. He looks over at her and smiles.
“Thanks.”
He’d just finished singing Pink’s “Get the Party Started” for their assignment of coming up with an opening number to get the crowd excited at Sectionals. While the group had seemed to really enjoy it, Mr. Schuester had made it pretty clear that it wasn’t going to be chosen.
“Doing anything fun tonight?” she asks as they reach his locker.
Blaine swallows and looks to his right as a flurry of noise sounds at the end of the corridor. The Cheerios are walking together, clearly just having finished practice. They’re laughing and sweaty and Blaine absolutely must look away immediately even though Kurt’s shirt is sticking to his chest. No, because of that. The way Kurt's moving, so proud and confident, is definitely reason enough to look away even though his eyeballs seem to have suddenly forgotten how to swivel in their sockets.
“No,” he says, and it isn’t even a lie. Sure he has plans to tutor Kurt but from the wholly uninviting way Kurt had acted around him the day before, Blaine’s expecting many things from the evening but fun most certainly is not one of them. “What about you?”
“Just homework. At least tomorrow’s Friday, right?” she asks, giving him a half smile. Blaine forces himself to return it and nods.
No one in Glee knows that he gets slushied every Friday. It always happens next to his car in the parking lot whether he dawdles before leaving the building or if he’s the first person out the door. They’re always waiting, ready to provide a cold and awful punctuation mark to his week.
“Right,” he says, frowning a little at a small slip of paper lying on top of the books stacked at the bottom of his locker. He pulls out the note and the few things he needs from the pile before pushing it shut. “Well, I should get going. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She nods and smiles and lets him walk away, discreetly unfolding the note as he moves.
I’ll be there at 7.
The handwriting is unfamiliar, but it wouldn’t take a Mensa candidate to know that it’s from Kurt. Each word looks… labored. Careful. It’s not the scrawl of someone jotting down a message. It displays a lot of thought, premeditation. He pockets it and turns to look at Mercedes as she walks the other way.
Blaine appreciates that they try. Rachel, Mercedes, and Mike have been particularly kind to him in these first few months at McKinley. The rest are fine--well, for the most part anyway--but those three have really gone above and beyond. He just finds himself wishing that he felt a true connection to one of them, that he could find a kindred spirit. It’s been, well, a year since he’s had that in his life and he misses it. Feels empty.
So he gets through each day as best he can with smiles and nods and polite conversation, surviving and breathing and counting down the days until he graduates-it’s over a year way, but still, it's close enough to count-and can escape to somewhere better. Somewhere accepting. A place where weeks don’t end in baths of ice and sugar and when people ignore you in passing it’s because they’re busy with their own lives, not because they’re actively pretending like you don’t exist.
When he gets home, he’s greeted by the smell of garlic that can only mean one thing-spaghetti. He grins and toes off his shoes, keeping his bag slung over his shoulder as he strides down the hallway, heading to the back of the house where the kitchen is located. As is often the case, there’s a note on the counter and food stashed in the oven to stay warm.
Your dad should be home by ten. Do your homework before you watch TV!
Love, Mom
Blaine looks at the note and smiles. Having a doctor and nurse as parents doesn’t exactly lead to heaping amounts of family togetherness, but little things like this let him know that even though they aren’t always around, they love and care about him. He touches the edge of the paper with his fingertips before depositing his bag by the kitchen table and heading upstairs.
It’s all part of his nightly routine: come home, work out, shower, eat dinner while doing homework, and then some TV or computer time if there are any hours left in the day. He changes into crimson basketball shorts and a faded gray t-shirt, quickly lacing up his sneakers before retreating to the basement. Thirty minutes on the treadmill and several reps of arms and abs are all he can stand before his stomach is protesting its emptiness far too loudly to ignore any longer.
By ten past seven, Blaine’s freshly showered, dressed in a short-sleeved white Henley and some blue jeans at the kitchen table. He’s halfway through his meal, reading his AP English assignment and taking half-assed, scribbly notes in a well-worn composition notebook when the doorbell rings. Blaine swallows and shoves the notebook inside his copy of Crime and Punishment before heading for the front of the house, brushing his hands off on his jeans.
On the front stoop he finds Kurt waiting, dressed in a clean Cheerios uniform with his feet planted perfectly in the middle of the welcome mat. There’s an indiscernible yet tense look on his face that makes Blaine squirm, his bare toes digging into the hardwood floor.
“Hi,” Blaine says, stepping aside. Kurt eyes him up and down before stepping over the threshold.
“Your hair is curly,” Kurt states, looking around the foyer and adjusting his bag on his shoulder. Blaine can feel himself flush and tries to fight it down.
“Oh that. Yeah, I just got out of the shower and didn’t really see the point in redoing it,” he admits, feeling a little uncomfortable about the judgmental way Kurt’s eyes had raked over his body. “We can go back into the kitchen, that’s where my stuff is.”
Kurt lets Blaine lead the way which he does with a sort of nervous undercurrent skimming just beneath his skin. He gestures toward the table and quickly gets rid of his dinner plate, shoving it in the fridge and holding the door open as he looks at Kurt.
“Do you want anything to drink?” he asks, rubbing a hand over the back of his head as he surveyed the options within. “We have water, milk, Diet Pepsi, orange juice-“
“No, I’m fine,” Kurt says, sitting ramrod straight in his chair with his bag in his lap. He carefully extracts his AP Chemistry textbook, a notebook, and a pen from within before re-latching it and setting it on the chair beside him. Blaine takes a second to grab a can of pop and slides back into his seat.
“Okay, so I snuck a peak at the board in the Chem room today to see what you were working on and I thought we’d start there,” Blaine says “I also asked the professor if I could borrow a book.” Kurt sucks in a breath and stiffens.
“Why do you need a book? I have a book,” he says, staring him down across the table. Blaine blinks, words sliding through the forefront of his mind but nothing really clicking into place.
“If I’m going to help you, I need to know the material you’re studying. It’s been over a year since I took the class. It’s not like I have the textbook memorized,” Blaine says, his eyebrows furrowing as he cracks open the can and takes a long sip. The fizzy soda burns the whole way down his throat and he appreciates the feeling. It’s familiar and welcome and has absolutely nothing to do with the very closed-off guy sitting across the table from him.
“I already told you that I don’t need your help,” Kurt says snidely, flipping open his book to some arbitrary page without breaking eye contact.
“And yet here you are,” Blaine snips. Kurt glares at him and Blaine tries to back down without giving in. It turns out that that’s actually incredibly difficult to do.
“Despite my protests, yes. I am.”
“I just want to help you.”
“No, you want to get paid. Which I understand, but let’s not sit here and act like you’re doing me a favor.” Blaine’s eyes narrow.
“You’re not the first person I’ve tutored, Kurt, and I’m sure you won’t be the last. I enjoy doing it. I like helping people.”
“Yes, you’re the Mother Theresa of Ohio,” Kurt rolls his eyes, finally dropping his gaze to his book and turning to the correct page. Blaine watches him, the way his fingertips firmly grip the pages yet turn them with care, the way the lines of his mouth are set hard despite the fact that they still look strangely inviting in a way that Blaine wishes he could ignore.
He wishes that this was like his other tutoring sessions. That it could be clinical with maybe a little bit of joking around, him finding the best way to help the other person grasp the subject matter at hand. But this is so much different.
Those people had all started out as strangers and for the most part that’s what Kurt is. But at the same time, he most certainly is not. From his very first day at McKinley, Blaine has known the name Kurt Hummel, has memorized the lines of his body, the shape of his nose, the striking color of his eyes. It isn’t as if he’s made a habit of leering, it’s just that Kurt is… unavoidable. If he’s in the hallway, eyes are on him and Blaine’s never been one to succumb to peer pressure, but his traitorous eyes follow regardless. The fact that he knows Kurt is also gay had put him on Blaine's radar right away along with the fact that they were never going to be anything other than strangers passing each other in the hallway. The very pointed way that Kurt had never once looked at him prior to the day before had told him that much.
“So, in this chapter-“ Blaine starts.
“You know, I think I will take a glass of water,” Kurt interrupts. Blaine sighs, plasters on a smile, and rises to get it for him. The next time Blaine tries to start, Kurt’s asking where the restroom is and excusing himself.
Blaine drops his head into his hands, curls sliding between his fingers. He gives them a tug just as Kurt comes back into the room, gracefully sliding back into his seat and uncapping his pen.
“Okay, Aristotle. Tutor me,” Kurt says. Blaine looks questioningly at him, beyond confused. “Aristotle was Alexander the Great’s tutor. Gee, I sure am glad that Coach picked you.” Blaine swallows and feels his nostrils flare.
“Forgive me for not getting the reference in two seconds,” Blaine says, feeling his teeth grinding as he gets himself onto the same page that Kurt’s on. He tries again. “In this chapter, the focus is on the liquid state.”
This time, Kurt lets him talk.
And talk.
And talk.
Blaine goes through the entire chapter while Kurt scratches out random notes here and there in a bastardized version of cursive that’s a far cry from the tidy note that had been left in his locker. When he reaches the final paragraph, he realizes that Kurt isn’t even looking at him. He’s doodling something in the margin of his notebook.
“I put together a little worksheet that covers everything we just went through,” Blaine says, though use of the word we feels a little generous. “I’d like you to go through the blank one now so I can see how well you’re understanding everything and then you can take the other one, which I’ve filled in the answers on, with you to study from.”
Kurt doesn’t say a word, just takes the paper from him and starts skimming down it, hastily filling in things so quickly there’s no way he’s even reading the paper. Blaine mentally prepares himself to read a series of answers that spell out ‘You suck and I wish you would die’ from the way Kurt’s been reacting ever since Sue first presented her suggestion the day before.
An awkward minute passes before Kurt flips the paper over and slaps it down on the tabletop in front of Blaine. He ignores the study guide Blaine had made him, picks up his things, and heads down the hallway.
“Kurt?” Blaine asks, jolting up from his seat and following Kurt out of the room. By the time he catches up with Kurt’s long strides, he’s pulling open the front door and stepping out into the night. “Kurt!” Again, the call goes unheard.
No. Not unheard. Ignored.
As Kurt pulls open the driver’s door of his Navigator, he finally looks at Blaine.
“You haven’t told anyone about this, have you?” he asks. Blaine shakes his head, the shock of Kurt’s abrupt departure clogging up his throat. “Good. Keep it that way.”
And then he’s gone.
Blaine stares at the darkness that swallows up Kurt’s tail lights like the intensity of his gaze is actually going to change the scene before him.
What in the hell just happened?
He shuts the door and locks up, flicking off the front porch light before padding back to the kitchen. His dinner is cold but he doesn’t care. Cold spaghetti isn’t so bad and he’s honestly feeling so strangely that he would eat it even if it did offend his taste sensibilities.
With a sigh and a shake of his head, he sets down the plate and picks up Kurt’s paper, readying himself for whatever nasties Kurt has left for him. What he sees instead makes his jaw drop.
Every single question is answered correctly.
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine
Rating: PG-13 overall.
Word Count: ~2400
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: Mentions of bullying.
Summary: Blaine is a new student at McKinley. Kurt is the star of the Cheerios. When Kurt is failing AP Chemistry, Coach Sylvester hires Blaine to tutor Kurt in order to ensure that he earns a grade that will allow him to stay on the squad. What will happen when the supposed nerd and the head cheerleader are forced to spend time together?
A/N: I started planning this fic when the very first Nerd!Blaine/Cheerio!Kurt gifset started floating around Tumblr. I've very much put my own spin on this, taking plenty of liberties especially when it comes to the definition of the word nerd. I hope you all enjoy this fic! <3 A million thanks to my wonderful beta
gleekto. :D
It’s going to be a better day today.
For once, Blaine feels like the mantra might actually be working. Every time he turns a corner or exits a classroom, he braces, muscles clenching, breath stopped up in his throat, just waiting for the rush of cold and humiliation. But it doesn’t come.
It’s Thursday, so it’s not supposed to happen. Never once has he been slushied on a Thursday, but as the previous morning had proved, anything is possible. That’s a phrase typically intended to bring about inspiration but now all it’s doing is filling him with a sick sense of prickling fear.
“I loved your song,” Mercedes says to him as they leave the choir room. He looks over at her and smiles.
“Thanks.”
He’d just finished singing Pink’s “Get the Party Started” for their assignment of coming up with an opening number to get the crowd excited at Sectionals. While the group had seemed to really enjoy it, Mr. Schuester had made it pretty clear that it wasn’t going to be chosen.
“Doing anything fun tonight?” she asks as they reach his locker.
Blaine swallows and looks to his right as a flurry of noise sounds at the end of the corridor. The Cheerios are walking together, clearly just having finished practice. They’re laughing and sweaty and Blaine absolutely must look away immediately even though Kurt’s shirt is sticking to his chest. No, because of that. The way Kurt's moving, so proud and confident, is definitely reason enough to look away even though his eyeballs seem to have suddenly forgotten how to swivel in their sockets.
“No,” he says, and it isn’t even a lie. Sure he has plans to tutor Kurt but from the wholly uninviting way Kurt had acted around him the day before, Blaine’s expecting many things from the evening but fun most certainly is not one of them. “What about you?”
“Just homework. At least tomorrow’s Friday, right?” she asks, giving him a half smile. Blaine forces himself to return it and nods.
No one in Glee knows that he gets slushied every Friday. It always happens next to his car in the parking lot whether he dawdles before leaving the building or if he’s the first person out the door. They’re always waiting, ready to provide a cold and awful punctuation mark to his week.
“Right,” he says, frowning a little at a small slip of paper lying on top of the books stacked at the bottom of his locker. He pulls out the note and the few things he needs from the pile before pushing it shut. “Well, I should get going. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She nods and smiles and lets him walk away, discreetly unfolding the note as he moves.
I’ll be there at 7.
The handwriting is unfamiliar, but it wouldn’t take a Mensa candidate to know that it’s from Kurt. Each word looks… labored. Careful. It’s not the scrawl of someone jotting down a message. It displays a lot of thought, premeditation. He pockets it and turns to look at Mercedes as she walks the other way.
Blaine appreciates that they try. Rachel, Mercedes, and Mike have been particularly kind to him in these first few months at McKinley. The rest are fine--well, for the most part anyway--but those three have really gone above and beyond. He just finds himself wishing that he felt a true connection to one of them, that he could find a kindred spirit. It’s been, well, a year since he’s had that in his life and he misses it. Feels empty.
So he gets through each day as best he can with smiles and nods and polite conversation, surviving and breathing and counting down the days until he graduates-it’s over a year way, but still, it's close enough to count-and can escape to somewhere better. Somewhere accepting. A place where weeks don’t end in baths of ice and sugar and when people ignore you in passing it’s because they’re busy with their own lives, not because they’re actively pretending like you don’t exist.
When he gets home, he’s greeted by the smell of garlic that can only mean one thing-spaghetti. He grins and toes off his shoes, keeping his bag slung over his shoulder as he strides down the hallway, heading to the back of the house where the kitchen is located. As is often the case, there’s a note on the counter and food stashed in the oven to stay warm.
Your dad should be home by ten. Do your homework before you watch TV!
Love, Mom
Blaine looks at the note and smiles. Having a doctor and nurse as parents doesn’t exactly lead to heaping amounts of family togetherness, but little things like this let him know that even though they aren’t always around, they love and care about him. He touches the edge of the paper with his fingertips before depositing his bag by the kitchen table and heading upstairs.
It’s all part of his nightly routine: come home, work out, shower, eat dinner while doing homework, and then some TV or computer time if there are any hours left in the day. He changes into crimson basketball shorts and a faded gray t-shirt, quickly lacing up his sneakers before retreating to the basement. Thirty minutes on the treadmill and several reps of arms and abs are all he can stand before his stomach is protesting its emptiness far too loudly to ignore any longer.
By ten past seven, Blaine’s freshly showered, dressed in a short-sleeved white Henley and some blue jeans at the kitchen table. He’s halfway through his meal, reading his AP English assignment and taking half-assed, scribbly notes in a well-worn composition notebook when the doorbell rings. Blaine swallows and shoves the notebook inside his copy of Crime and Punishment before heading for the front of the house, brushing his hands off on his jeans.
On the front stoop he finds Kurt waiting, dressed in a clean Cheerios uniform with his feet planted perfectly in the middle of the welcome mat. There’s an indiscernible yet tense look on his face that makes Blaine squirm, his bare toes digging into the hardwood floor.
“Hi,” Blaine says, stepping aside. Kurt eyes him up and down before stepping over the threshold.
“Your hair is curly,” Kurt states, looking around the foyer and adjusting his bag on his shoulder. Blaine can feel himself flush and tries to fight it down.
“Oh that. Yeah, I just got out of the shower and didn’t really see the point in redoing it,” he admits, feeling a little uncomfortable about the judgmental way Kurt’s eyes had raked over his body. “We can go back into the kitchen, that’s where my stuff is.”
Kurt lets Blaine lead the way which he does with a sort of nervous undercurrent skimming just beneath his skin. He gestures toward the table and quickly gets rid of his dinner plate, shoving it in the fridge and holding the door open as he looks at Kurt.
“Do you want anything to drink?” he asks, rubbing a hand over the back of his head as he surveyed the options within. “We have water, milk, Diet Pepsi, orange juice-“
“No, I’m fine,” Kurt says, sitting ramrod straight in his chair with his bag in his lap. He carefully extracts his AP Chemistry textbook, a notebook, and a pen from within before re-latching it and setting it on the chair beside him. Blaine takes a second to grab a can of pop and slides back into his seat.
“Okay, so I snuck a peak at the board in the Chem room today to see what you were working on and I thought we’d start there,” Blaine says “I also asked the professor if I could borrow a book.” Kurt sucks in a breath and stiffens.
“Why do you need a book? I have a book,” he says, staring him down across the table. Blaine blinks, words sliding through the forefront of his mind but nothing really clicking into place.
“If I’m going to help you, I need to know the material you’re studying. It’s been over a year since I took the class. It’s not like I have the textbook memorized,” Blaine says, his eyebrows furrowing as he cracks open the can and takes a long sip. The fizzy soda burns the whole way down his throat and he appreciates the feeling. It’s familiar and welcome and has absolutely nothing to do with the very closed-off guy sitting across the table from him.
“I already told you that I don’t need your help,” Kurt says snidely, flipping open his book to some arbitrary page without breaking eye contact.
“And yet here you are,” Blaine snips. Kurt glares at him and Blaine tries to back down without giving in. It turns out that that’s actually incredibly difficult to do.
“Despite my protests, yes. I am.”
“I just want to help you.”
“No, you want to get paid. Which I understand, but let’s not sit here and act like you’re doing me a favor.” Blaine’s eyes narrow.
“You’re not the first person I’ve tutored, Kurt, and I’m sure you won’t be the last. I enjoy doing it. I like helping people.”
“Yes, you’re the Mother Theresa of Ohio,” Kurt rolls his eyes, finally dropping his gaze to his book and turning to the correct page. Blaine watches him, the way his fingertips firmly grip the pages yet turn them with care, the way the lines of his mouth are set hard despite the fact that they still look strangely inviting in a way that Blaine wishes he could ignore.
He wishes that this was like his other tutoring sessions. That it could be clinical with maybe a little bit of joking around, him finding the best way to help the other person grasp the subject matter at hand. But this is so much different.
Those people had all started out as strangers and for the most part that’s what Kurt is. But at the same time, he most certainly is not. From his very first day at McKinley, Blaine has known the name Kurt Hummel, has memorized the lines of his body, the shape of his nose, the striking color of his eyes. It isn’t as if he’s made a habit of leering, it’s just that Kurt is… unavoidable. If he’s in the hallway, eyes are on him and Blaine’s never been one to succumb to peer pressure, but his traitorous eyes follow regardless. The fact that he knows Kurt is also gay had put him on Blaine's radar right away along with the fact that they were never going to be anything other than strangers passing each other in the hallway. The very pointed way that Kurt had never once looked at him prior to the day before had told him that much.
“So, in this chapter-“ Blaine starts.
“You know, I think I will take a glass of water,” Kurt interrupts. Blaine sighs, plasters on a smile, and rises to get it for him. The next time Blaine tries to start, Kurt’s asking where the restroom is and excusing himself.
Blaine drops his head into his hands, curls sliding between his fingers. He gives them a tug just as Kurt comes back into the room, gracefully sliding back into his seat and uncapping his pen.
“Okay, Aristotle. Tutor me,” Kurt says. Blaine looks questioningly at him, beyond confused. “Aristotle was Alexander the Great’s tutor. Gee, I sure am glad that Coach picked you.” Blaine swallows and feels his nostrils flare.
“Forgive me for not getting the reference in two seconds,” Blaine says, feeling his teeth grinding as he gets himself onto the same page that Kurt’s on. He tries again. “In this chapter, the focus is on the liquid state.”
This time, Kurt lets him talk.
And talk.
And talk.
Blaine goes through the entire chapter while Kurt scratches out random notes here and there in a bastardized version of cursive that’s a far cry from the tidy note that had been left in his locker. When he reaches the final paragraph, he realizes that Kurt isn’t even looking at him. He’s doodling something in the margin of his notebook.
“I put together a little worksheet that covers everything we just went through,” Blaine says, though use of the word we feels a little generous. “I’d like you to go through the blank one now so I can see how well you’re understanding everything and then you can take the other one, which I’ve filled in the answers on, with you to study from.”
Kurt doesn’t say a word, just takes the paper from him and starts skimming down it, hastily filling in things so quickly there’s no way he’s even reading the paper. Blaine mentally prepares himself to read a series of answers that spell out ‘You suck and I wish you would die’ from the way Kurt’s been reacting ever since Sue first presented her suggestion the day before.
An awkward minute passes before Kurt flips the paper over and slaps it down on the tabletop in front of Blaine. He ignores the study guide Blaine had made him, picks up his things, and heads down the hallway.
“Kurt?” Blaine asks, jolting up from his seat and following Kurt out of the room. By the time he catches up with Kurt’s long strides, he’s pulling open the front door and stepping out into the night. “Kurt!” Again, the call goes unheard.
No. Not unheard. Ignored.
As Kurt pulls open the driver’s door of his Navigator, he finally looks at Blaine.
“You haven’t told anyone about this, have you?” he asks. Blaine shakes his head, the shock of Kurt’s abrupt departure clogging up his throat. “Good. Keep it that way.”
And then he’s gone.
Blaine stares at the darkness that swallows up Kurt’s tail lights like the intensity of his gaze is actually going to change the scene before him.
What in the hell just happened?
He shuts the door and locks up, flicking off the front porch light before padding back to the kitchen. His dinner is cold but he doesn’t care. Cold spaghetti isn’t so bad and he’s honestly feeling so strangely that he would eat it even if it did offend his taste sensibilities.
With a sigh and a shake of his head, he sets down the plate and picks up Kurt’s paper, readying himself for whatever nasties Kurt has left for him. What he sees instead makes his jaw drop.
Every single question is answered correctly.