Kurt/Blaine: Precipice (5/?)
Title: Precipice (5/?)
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine
Rating: PG-13 overall.
Word Count: ~
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: 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.
“Hey, Lewis Skolnick,” a voice booms down the crowded hallway. “A word.”
Blaine doesn’t have to look to know that the comment is meant for him or that it’s coming from Sue Sylvester. Mike is at his side, the two of them making their way through the cattle-like throngs of their classmates to an extra scheduled Glee rehearsal after a completely uneventful Friday full of classes.
“Why does she want to talk to you?” Mike asks, face scrunched up in confusion as Blaine starts to head in her direction.
“No idea,” Blaine lies, giving a little shrug and adjusting his tie. “If I’m late, will you tell Mr. Schue I’ll be there soon?”
“Of course,” Mike nods and heads into the choir room. He pauses in the doorway “Good luck.” Blaine snorts and shakes his head before crossing the short distance to her office.
She’s the only one inside and Blaine can’t help but feel disappointed. The other time he’d been summoned to her office, Kurt had been there, too. Ever since Saturday night when they’d shared Blaine’s couch and a pizza while Kurt prepped for his AP Chem midterm, things have felt different. They still don’t talk at school-honestly, Blaine holds no hope that this will ever happen-but when they pass each other, they make eye contact. Kurt even smiled at him on Wednesday. It had been a slightly condescending and disapproving smile at the yellow and pink bowtie Blaine had been wearing, but it had still been a smile. He wonders briefly what Kurt thinks of the one he’s wearing today-white with light blue polka dots, one that had been his grandfather’s.
So, of course he’s disappointed that Kurt isn’t there, not only because it would have ensured some interaction during school hours, but also because Blaine is absolutely not looking forward to facing her on his own.
“I’ll get right to the point because I really don’t want to be talking to you right now,” she starts. Blaine would be offended, but, well, he doesn’t particularly want to be speaking with her either. “Kurt aced his midterm on Monday. Don’t know what you’re doing to help, don’t care. Just keep it up.”
Blaine grins and nods before catching himself. He hasn’t done anything to help Kurt, not really. As Kurt has been so determinedly telling him since their very first official meeting, Kurt doesn’t need his help. What he needs is a cover. While Blaine doesn’t agree with Kurt’s reasons for not doing well in AP Chem, he’s not going to be the one to out Kurt’s secret.
“I will,” Blaine says.
“Good, now get out of here.” Blaine scrambles to a standing position and rushes from the room. The nerves that had been pulled tight in his shoulders melt away like ice on a hot summer day. He survived, not only the encounter with Sue, but also the week. Over a week has passed since his last slushying. Now, with this extra Glee rehearsal that Mr. Schuester had called that morning about to take place, all of them will be leaving together and the odds of his typical Friday afternoon slushy taking place are greatly diminished.
The mood is somber when he enters the choir room, the kind of atmosphere that usually fills a room with dread and anguish after someone dies.
“What’s going on?” he asks, sliding into a seat beside Mercedes without taking his eyes from Mr. Schuester’s stony face.
“Puck’s in juvie again,” she explains softly.
“Oh,” he says, slumping back in his chair.
“Another boy from his fight club charged him with assault,” Rachel leans in to clarify. Blaine blinks and tries not to react. Instead he just nods.
Puck’s in a fight club? Interesting.
“He’s going to be in there for the next couple of months,” Mr. Schuester explains. “Sectionals is a little over a month away, so we all need to put on our thinking caps and find a replacement for him. Otherwise, we won’t be able to perform.”
“No one wants to join Glee club, Mr. Schue,” Mercedes says.
“It’s true. Even though we went to Nationals last year, the school still thinks of us as pariahs,” Tina adds.
“Why does the school think we’re man-eating fish?” Blaine hears Brittany ask Santana in the row behind him.
“I know that things aren’t always… easy for you guys and that people might not exactly be beating down the door to join, but there has to be someone out there who would be a good fit. Just keep an eye out, okay?” Mr. Schue requests. Blaine tries hard not to roll his eyes as irritation hits him hard and fast.
Why is it their job to find a new member? Why can’t he do some recruiting?
Everyone grumbles their assent and files out. Blaine sticks close to Mercedes’ side as they leave, chatting idly about their weekend plans as the distance between the school and their backs widens. Their cars are side-by-side and he’s already got the door open, laughing at her parting comment as he says goodbye when he hears it.
“Happy Friday, Gaylord!” He turns out of instinct, barely having the time to close his eyes before the bright blue slush hits in him in the face.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Mercedes screams after Hank as he takes off, chuckling loudly before a car door slams and tires peel out on the asphalt. “Blaine, are you okay?”
He swipes his hands down his face, shaking them off before going back to clear off the rest. His throat tightens, his breaths shorten, tears prickle at the corners of his eyes, mixing with the mess and making him even more upset than he already is. How could he have been so stupid? Had he really thought that it was over just because a week had passed? Why had he risked it?
With fingers that shake, he pulls the bowtie from around his neck, swiping a thumb over the now blue-stained fabric. It’s ruined. He’s tried in the past to get stains out of the silky-smooth material of his ties to no avail. Letting out a frustrated huff that brings with it a few tears sliding down his cheeks, he flings the tie to the ground and moves to the trunk of his car to pull out an oversized beach towel which he immediately covers his driver’s seat with.
He realizes then that Mercedes has been talking to him the entire time, but the angry ringing in his ears hasn’t allowed him to hear a single word.
“You do this a lot, don’t you?” she asks softly, stepping in so close to him that he has to hear her.
“Every Friday afternoon,” he says, tucking the towel in around the seat so it hopefully won’t shift and allow the stained ice to ruin his car seats, too. She sighs and places a hand on his shoulder that he shrugs off.
“Blaine,” she whispers.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” he chokes out before the need to really cry is on him so oppressively that he can’t speak another word. She looks at him and nods and he’s so thankful that she understands and isn’t going to push it that he’d hug her if he wasn’t covered in slush. Instead, he just climbs into his car, bits of rapidly melting ice trickling down his chest and neck, and drives home.
Blaine spends the rest of his Friday alone in his room. He eats his dinner there, does his homework for the weekend, and then carefully packs away the rest of the bowties his grandma had let him have after his grandpa passed away. Today has been awful. In a way, it’s like losing him all over again and the disappointment of having allowed one of those ties to be ruined sits so thick and heavy in his stomach that he winds up going to bed before nine o’clock just to make it go away.
On Saturday, he sleeps late and barely gets up in time to have lunch with his parents before they’re both off for a shift at the hospital. His mom fusses over him and tells him to get plenty of rest because he looks like he’s getting sick. She even offers to call in so she can stay with him, but he tells her that he’s fine. There’s nothing she could do for him anyway.
The day drags on, hour after hour clawing its way around the circular face of the large clock above the fireplace that Blaine spends a lot more time watching than the TV with the Fear Factor marathon playing. Just as he’s contemplating going to bed at a truly embarrassingly early hour, the doorbell rings.
He sits up and rubs the drowsiness from his eyes. He knows he looks like hell. He’d taken a shower earlier, but hadn’t done much other than put a little gel in his hair. The gel Kurt had left for him.
Patting his hair down in hopes of somewhat taming it where it has surely become ridiculous from the lounging he’s done all afternoon, he makes his way to the front door and pulls it open.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” Blaine says, unable to hide the shock from his voice. Kurt Hummel is standing on his doorstep with a box of pizza. “What are you doing here?”
“Weekly tutoring session, of course,” Kurt tells him, brushing past and heading straight for the living room. Blaine quickly shuts the door and follows, confusion weighing down his brain to the point that it’s making him feel completely worthless.
“But…” Blaine manages before clearing his throat. “But you don’t need my help, Kurt.”
“I thought you said you couldn’t lie to Coach about getting together,” Kurt says, setting the box down on the coffee table before digging around in his messenger bag. Blaine nods slowly and steps closer, watching Kurt curiously until he pulls something out that makes all of the breath rush out of his lungs like an accordion squeezed shut.
“Where’d you get that?” he asks, his voice no more than a throaty croak.
“I saw it in the parking lot when I was leaving practice yesterday. It’s hideous, but I-“
Blaine is completely without responsibility for what happens next.
He quickly closes the distance between them and throws his arms around Kurt’s neck, squeezing tight and fighting back the urge to cry. Kurt freezes and Blaine can hear the whoosh of the long breath Kurt lets out before his arms coil around Blaine’s middle.
“Thank you,” Blaine says, and his own words shake him out of his thank-fueled trance. He’s hugging Kurt.
He’s hugging Kurt.
This… isn’t something he should be doing. Even though Kurt smells like an amazingly perfect combination of soap and cologne and skin and his arms are strong around him and yes, he definitely needs to stop hugging Kurt.
He takes a step back and laughs lightly.
“I’m sorry, it’s just…” He can’t exactly look Kurt in the eye at the moment, so he focuses on reaching out and taking the bowtie from Kurt’s hands. It’s spotless, looking exactly the way it had on Friday morning when he’d put it on.
“It’s special to you?” Kurt asks. Blaine swallows down the lump of emotion in his throat and blinks rapidly to make any potential tears disappear before they have the chance to come into existence.
“It was my grandpa’s. He, uh… he passed way over the summer,” Blaine explains. “I shouldn’t have worn it to school. I’ve never been able to get the stains out well and just because I hadn’t been slushied in over a week, I stupidly assumed it was over. Just… thank you, Kurt.”
It takes Kurt a moment to respond, so Blaine looks up only to find Kurt’s gaze fixed on the clock above the fireplace.
“You’re welcome,” he says softly. “I… I get it.”
Blaine looks Kurt up and down, at the standard issued cheerleading uniform that constantly covers Kurt’s body and bites down on the inside of his lip to keep himself from arguing the point.
“How’d you get the stains out?” Blaine asks, taking a seat on the edge of the couch and smiling as Kurt opens the box, revealing the half Meat Lovers, half Hawaiian pizza inside.
“Ancient Chinese secret,” Kurt says, the very hint of a smile on his lips. “Just don’t throw anything else away, okay? That stuff is terrible but it comes out with some work.”
“How do you-?” Blaine starts to ask, but Kurt’s helping himself to a slice from the Hawaiian half of the pizza and interrupting so smoothly that it makes Blaine entirely certain that it wasn’t an accident at all.
“Were you and your grandpa close?” is what he butts in with. Blaine snags a slice of Meat Lovers and takes a bite before answering.
“Yeah, we were,” Blaine says, picking off a piece of Canadian Bacon and eating it before looking at Kurt.
“Well, I think you’ll be safe to wear his bowties to school from now on,” Kurt says after a moment, giving him a sidelong look before taking another bite of his pizza.
“Why’s that?”
“Do you always ask so many questions?”
“Kind of,” Blaine admits with a sheepish shrug.
“I assumed,” Kurt says, shaking his head lightly before turning to face Blaine. “Like the pizza?”
“It’s great, thanks,” Blaine says. They watch the show in silence for awhile, just eating and Blaine sneaking looks at Kurt every few seconds. He just looks so… comfortable. Blaine wishes that he could see into Kurt’s brain, to know what he’s thinking.
He obviously isn’t there for tutoring and Blaine doesn’t really believe that he even cares so much about keeping up the ruse anymore. So why is he there? To return the bowtie? He could have done that without bringing over a pizza. So what then?
“I got an A+ on my midterm,” Kurt blurts out just before the contestants start trying to finagle themselves out of locked underwater contraptions.
“That’s what Coach Sylvester told me,” Blaine says with a smile. “No thanks to me, of course.”
“Naturally,” Kurt says, and then he laughs and the moment turns into something out of a cheesy movie. It’s like the entire room goes dark except for a spotlight trained right on Kurt, the movements of his face as it lights up in laughter all working in Hollywood-magic slow motion and Blaine swears that there’s even music playing in the background. The moment shatters when Kurt speaks next, but the throbbing of Blaine’s heart doesn’t dissipate. “You are a good tutor. Or, I’m assuming you would be to someone who actually needs the help.”
“Thank you,” Blaine says, his voice low and soft, his heart still thrumming against his ribs. “I tutored a lot at my old school. It was kind of nice to do it again. It would’ve been nice to have a pupil who actually wanted the help, though.”
“It was about as welcome as a root canal.”
“Mmhmm,” Blaine responds, raising his eyebrows slightly and taking a bite of his pizza, wanting to add ‘And that’s why you’re here on my couch on a Saturday night eating dinner with me.’
The rest of the pizza goes into the fridge and they settle in with a can of pop each and a shared bag of lightly buttered popcorn-at Kurt’s insistence, though Blaine has a penchant for the movie theater butter kind-and You’ve Got Mail on the TV. They don't talk much, just random passing comments about the likelihood--Blaine--or unlikelihood--Kurt--of the entire situation being a product of fate and ample amounts of cooing over the adorableness of Brinkley (and Meg Ryan's hair). At some point in time, Blaine drifts off to sleep on his end of the sofa and doesn’t wake up until the sound of someone clearing their throat loudly startles him into alertness.
“Am I interrupting something?” his dad’s voice asks.
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine
Rating: PG-13 overall.
Word Count: ~
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: 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.
“Hey, Lewis Skolnick,” a voice booms down the crowded hallway. “A word.”
Blaine doesn’t have to look to know that the comment is meant for him or that it’s coming from Sue Sylvester. Mike is at his side, the two of them making their way through the cattle-like throngs of their classmates to an extra scheduled Glee rehearsal after a completely uneventful Friday full of classes.
“Why does she want to talk to you?” Mike asks, face scrunched up in confusion as Blaine starts to head in her direction.
“No idea,” Blaine lies, giving a little shrug and adjusting his tie. “If I’m late, will you tell Mr. Schue I’ll be there soon?”
“Of course,” Mike nods and heads into the choir room. He pauses in the doorway “Good luck.” Blaine snorts and shakes his head before crossing the short distance to her office.
She’s the only one inside and Blaine can’t help but feel disappointed. The other time he’d been summoned to her office, Kurt had been there, too. Ever since Saturday night when they’d shared Blaine’s couch and a pizza while Kurt prepped for his AP Chem midterm, things have felt different. They still don’t talk at school-honestly, Blaine holds no hope that this will ever happen-but when they pass each other, they make eye contact. Kurt even smiled at him on Wednesday. It had been a slightly condescending and disapproving smile at the yellow and pink bowtie Blaine had been wearing, but it had still been a smile. He wonders briefly what Kurt thinks of the one he’s wearing today-white with light blue polka dots, one that had been his grandfather’s.
So, of course he’s disappointed that Kurt isn’t there, not only because it would have ensured some interaction during school hours, but also because Blaine is absolutely not looking forward to facing her on his own.
“I’ll get right to the point because I really don’t want to be talking to you right now,” she starts. Blaine would be offended, but, well, he doesn’t particularly want to be speaking with her either. “Kurt aced his midterm on Monday. Don’t know what you’re doing to help, don’t care. Just keep it up.”
Blaine grins and nods before catching himself. He hasn’t done anything to help Kurt, not really. As Kurt has been so determinedly telling him since their very first official meeting, Kurt doesn’t need his help. What he needs is a cover. While Blaine doesn’t agree with Kurt’s reasons for not doing well in AP Chem, he’s not going to be the one to out Kurt’s secret.
“I will,” Blaine says.
“Good, now get out of here.” Blaine scrambles to a standing position and rushes from the room. The nerves that had been pulled tight in his shoulders melt away like ice on a hot summer day. He survived, not only the encounter with Sue, but also the week. Over a week has passed since his last slushying. Now, with this extra Glee rehearsal that Mr. Schuester had called that morning about to take place, all of them will be leaving together and the odds of his typical Friday afternoon slushy taking place are greatly diminished.
The mood is somber when he enters the choir room, the kind of atmosphere that usually fills a room with dread and anguish after someone dies.
“What’s going on?” he asks, sliding into a seat beside Mercedes without taking his eyes from Mr. Schuester’s stony face.
“Puck’s in juvie again,” she explains softly.
“Oh,” he says, slumping back in his chair.
“Another boy from his fight club charged him with assault,” Rachel leans in to clarify. Blaine blinks and tries not to react. Instead he just nods.
Puck’s in a fight club? Interesting.
“He’s going to be in there for the next couple of months,” Mr. Schuester explains. “Sectionals is a little over a month away, so we all need to put on our thinking caps and find a replacement for him. Otherwise, we won’t be able to perform.”
“No one wants to join Glee club, Mr. Schue,” Mercedes says.
“It’s true. Even though we went to Nationals last year, the school still thinks of us as pariahs,” Tina adds.
“Why does the school think we’re man-eating fish?” Blaine hears Brittany ask Santana in the row behind him.
“I know that things aren’t always… easy for you guys and that people might not exactly be beating down the door to join, but there has to be someone out there who would be a good fit. Just keep an eye out, okay?” Mr. Schue requests. Blaine tries hard not to roll his eyes as irritation hits him hard and fast.
Why is it their job to find a new member? Why can’t he do some recruiting?
Everyone grumbles their assent and files out. Blaine sticks close to Mercedes’ side as they leave, chatting idly about their weekend plans as the distance between the school and their backs widens. Their cars are side-by-side and he’s already got the door open, laughing at her parting comment as he says goodbye when he hears it.
“Happy Friday, Gaylord!” He turns out of instinct, barely having the time to close his eyes before the bright blue slush hits in him in the face.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Mercedes screams after Hank as he takes off, chuckling loudly before a car door slams and tires peel out on the asphalt. “Blaine, are you okay?”
He swipes his hands down his face, shaking them off before going back to clear off the rest. His throat tightens, his breaths shorten, tears prickle at the corners of his eyes, mixing with the mess and making him even more upset than he already is. How could he have been so stupid? Had he really thought that it was over just because a week had passed? Why had he risked it?
With fingers that shake, he pulls the bowtie from around his neck, swiping a thumb over the now blue-stained fabric. It’s ruined. He’s tried in the past to get stains out of the silky-smooth material of his ties to no avail. Letting out a frustrated huff that brings with it a few tears sliding down his cheeks, he flings the tie to the ground and moves to the trunk of his car to pull out an oversized beach towel which he immediately covers his driver’s seat with.
He realizes then that Mercedes has been talking to him the entire time, but the angry ringing in his ears hasn’t allowed him to hear a single word.
“You do this a lot, don’t you?” she asks softly, stepping in so close to him that he has to hear her.
“Every Friday afternoon,” he says, tucking the towel in around the seat so it hopefully won’t shift and allow the stained ice to ruin his car seats, too. She sighs and places a hand on his shoulder that he shrugs off.
“Blaine,” she whispers.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” he chokes out before the need to really cry is on him so oppressively that he can’t speak another word. She looks at him and nods and he’s so thankful that she understands and isn’t going to push it that he’d hug her if he wasn’t covered in slush. Instead, he just climbs into his car, bits of rapidly melting ice trickling down his chest and neck, and drives home.
Blaine spends the rest of his Friday alone in his room. He eats his dinner there, does his homework for the weekend, and then carefully packs away the rest of the bowties his grandma had let him have after his grandpa passed away. Today has been awful. In a way, it’s like losing him all over again and the disappointment of having allowed one of those ties to be ruined sits so thick and heavy in his stomach that he winds up going to bed before nine o’clock just to make it go away.
On Saturday, he sleeps late and barely gets up in time to have lunch with his parents before they’re both off for a shift at the hospital. His mom fusses over him and tells him to get plenty of rest because he looks like he’s getting sick. She even offers to call in so she can stay with him, but he tells her that he’s fine. There’s nothing she could do for him anyway.
The day drags on, hour after hour clawing its way around the circular face of the large clock above the fireplace that Blaine spends a lot more time watching than the TV with the Fear Factor marathon playing. Just as he’s contemplating going to bed at a truly embarrassingly early hour, the doorbell rings.
He sits up and rubs the drowsiness from his eyes. He knows he looks like hell. He’d taken a shower earlier, but hadn’t done much other than put a little gel in his hair. The gel Kurt had left for him.
Patting his hair down in hopes of somewhat taming it where it has surely become ridiculous from the lounging he’s done all afternoon, he makes his way to the front door and pulls it open.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” Blaine says, unable to hide the shock from his voice. Kurt Hummel is standing on his doorstep with a box of pizza. “What are you doing here?”
“Weekly tutoring session, of course,” Kurt tells him, brushing past and heading straight for the living room. Blaine quickly shuts the door and follows, confusion weighing down his brain to the point that it’s making him feel completely worthless.
“But…” Blaine manages before clearing his throat. “But you don’t need my help, Kurt.”
“I thought you said you couldn’t lie to Coach about getting together,” Kurt says, setting the box down on the coffee table before digging around in his messenger bag. Blaine nods slowly and steps closer, watching Kurt curiously until he pulls something out that makes all of the breath rush out of his lungs like an accordion squeezed shut.
“Where’d you get that?” he asks, his voice no more than a throaty croak.
“I saw it in the parking lot when I was leaving practice yesterday. It’s hideous, but I-“
Blaine is completely without responsibility for what happens next.
He quickly closes the distance between them and throws his arms around Kurt’s neck, squeezing tight and fighting back the urge to cry. Kurt freezes and Blaine can hear the whoosh of the long breath Kurt lets out before his arms coil around Blaine’s middle.
“Thank you,” Blaine says, and his own words shake him out of his thank-fueled trance. He’s hugging Kurt.
He’s hugging Kurt.
This… isn’t something he should be doing. Even though Kurt smells like an amazingly perfect combination of soap and cologne and skin and his arms are strong around him and yes, he definitely needs to stop hugging Kurt.
He takes a step back and laughs lightly.
“I’m sorry, it’s just…” He can’t exactly look Kurt in the eye at the moment, so he focuses on reaching out and taking the bowtie from Kurt’s hands. It’s spotless, looking exactly the way it had on Friday morning when he’d put it on.
“It’s special to you?” Kurt asks. Blaine swallows down the lump of emotion in his throat and blinks rapidly to make any potential tears disappear before they have the chance to come into existence.
“It was my grandpa’s. He, uh… he passed way over the summer,” Blaine explains. “I shouldn’t have worn it to school. I’ve never been able to get the stains out well and just because I hadn’t been slushied in over a week, I stupidly assumed it was over. Just… thank you, Kurt.”
It takes Kurt a moment to respond, so Blaine looks up only to find Kurt’s gaze fixed on the clock above the fireplace.
“You’re welcome,” he says softly. “I… I get it.”
Blaine looks Kurt up and down, at the standard issued cheerleading uniform that constantly covers Kurt’s body and bites down on the inside of his lip to keep himself from arguing the point.
“How’d you get the stains out?” Blaine asks, taking a seat on the edge of the couch and smiling as Kurt opens the box, revealing the half Meat Lovers, half Hawaiian pizza inside.
“Ancient Chinese secret,” Kurt says, the very hint of a smile on his lips. “Just don’t throw anything else away, okay? That stuff is terrible but it comes out with some work.”
“How do you-?” Blaine starts to ask, but Kurt’s helping himself to a slice from the Hawaiian half of the pizza and interrupting so smoothly that it makes Blaine entirely certain that it wasn’t an accident at all.
“Were you and your grandpa close?” is what he butts in with. Blaine snags a slice of Meat Lovers and takes a bite before answering.
“Yeah, we were,” Blaine says, picking off a piece of Canadian Bacon and eating it before looking at Kurt.
“Well, I think you’ll be safe to wear his bowties to school from now on,” Kurt says after a moment, giving him a sidelong look before taking another bite of his pizza.
“Why’s that?”
“Do you always ask so many questions?”
“Kind of,” Blaine admits with a sheepish shrug.
“I assumed,” Kurt says, shaking his head lightly before turning to face Blaine. “Like the pizza?”
“It’s great, thanks,” Blaine says. They watch the show in silence for awhile, just eating and Blaine sneaking looks at Kurt every few seconds. He just looks so… comfortable. Blaine wishes that he could see into Kurt’s brain, to know what he’s thinking.
He obviously isn’t there for tutoring and Blaine doesn’t really believe that he even cares so much about keeping up the ruse anymore. So why is he there? To return the bowtie? He could have done that without bringing over a pizza. So what then?
“I got an A+ on my midterm,” Kurt blurts out just before the contestants start trying to finagle themselves out of locked underwater contraptions.
“That’s what Coach Sylvester told me,” Blaine says with a smile. “No thanks to me, of course.”
“Naturally,” Kurt says, and then he laughs and the moment turns into something out of a cheesy movie. It’s like the entire room goes dark except for a spotlight trained right on Kurt, the movements of his face as it lights up in laughter all working in Hollywood-magic slow motion and Blaine swears that there’s even music playing in the background. The moment shatters when Kurt speaks next, but the throbbing of Blaine’s heart doesn’t dissipate. “You are a good tutor. Or, I’m assuming you would be to someone who actually needs the help.”
“Thank you,” Blaine says, his voice low and soft, his heart still thrumming against his ribs. “I tutored a lot at my old school. It was kind of nice to do it again. It would’ve been nice to have a pupil who actually wanted the help, though.”
“It was about as welcome as a root canal.”
“Mmhmm,” Blaine responds, raising his eyebrows slightly and taking a bite of his pizza, wanting to add ‘And that’s why you’re here on my couch on a Saturday night eating dinner with me.’
The rest of the pizza goes into the fridge and they settle in with a can of pop each and a shared bag of lightly buttered popcorn-at Kurt’s insistence, though Blaine has a penchant for the movie theater butter kind-and You’ve Got Mail on the TV. They don't talk much, just random passing comments about the likelihood--Blaine--or unlikelihood--Kurt--of the entire situation being a product of fate and ample amounts of cooing over the adorableness of Brinkley (and Meg Ryan's hair). At some point in time, Blaine drifts off to sleep on his end of the sofa and doesn’t wake up until the sound of someone clearing their throat loudly startles him into alertness.
“Am I interrupting something?” his dad’s voice asks.