Fics: Suds
Title: Suds
Author gameboycolor
Pairing: Klaine
Spoilers: None
Warnings: I don't know. It's pretty cheesy?
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~3000
Summary: Kurt and Blaine meet at a laundromat. Fo oddwritesstuff.
A/N: Thank you ourlivesareweird, for the betaing. <3
There is a laundry room in Blaine’s apartment complex. Unfortunately, he is unable to use it unless he plans to guard his laundry throughout the entire cycle.
This doesn’t always deter the zombie-like inhabitants of his apartment complex. He once woke up to the woman in 3B removing his sopping wet clothing from the wash and putting it in the floor. In addition to that, the machines have stolen roughly five dollars from him over the past two months.
For these reasons, and these reasons alone, he has found himself a regular at Suds, the local laundromat.
Blaine sighs and erases another word from his crossword puzzle. This is why he never does these things in pen.
An eight letter word for ‘dating-service goal.’
Husband doesn’t fit, neither does wife. It’s not lover, and it’s not match. He’s about ready to toss the damn magazine in the trash. Who cares about some stupid puzzle, anyway? He brought his iPad, after all; maybe he can just play some mindless game until it’s time to put his clothes in the dryer.
He sighs. “An eight letter word for dating-service goal. Can I just cross out some of the boxes and call it a day?”
“Have you tried soulmate?” the boy beside him asks.
Blaine looks over. He doesn’t know how he didn’t notice him when he entered. He’s gorgeous, and Blaine suddenly feels very plain in his laundry day cargo shorts and old show choir t-shirt. “Uh, no. That would really lame.” He pencils it in anyway, though, and letting out a triumphant - “Ah ha!” when it fits.
The boy quirks a brow at him.
“I’ve been trying to get that one for like, an hour,” Blaine explains.
The stranger smiles, but he doesn’t say anything else. Instead, he folds his laundry. This makes sense, because they’re at a laundromat. Blaine wants to keep talking to him, but he looks so focused on his task that he doesn’t want to interrupt.
Returning to his puzzle, Blaine finds that the rest of the answers come to mind quickly with that particular word out of the way. He finishes right before his washer goes off.
It’s not until he remembers to thank the boy that Blaine notices that he’s alone.
*
When Blaine gets back to his apartment, he considers taking a moment to bang his head against the wall. He had found himself in the middle of one of those movie magic moment. The perfect crossword puzzle answer, the ordinary setting, eyes meeting across the room --
Okay, okay - he might have not even been gay, but if he had? Perfect moment. He could have made a joke about dryer sheets (not that he has any jokes about dryer sheets), and they would have laughed.
Exchanged names, numbers, a few smiles.
Blaine glares at the hamper full of fresh laundry, as if it is to blame for this.
After a moment, he tugs out a sweatshirt, hoping that its lingering warmth and fresh lilac scent will make him feel better about earlier.
It doesn’t.
But he's pretty sure he's found another reason to keep hanging out at that laundromat.
*
Blaine doesn’t even have laundry to do today. He’s brought in a hamper of mostly clean clothing. The sweaty gym clothes are mixed in with the lilac scented socks and it reminds him vaguely of middle school boys drenched in bad cologne.
Once he realizes that the mystery boy is nowhere to be found, he quickly turns around and leaves the laundromat.
He’s aware that he probably looks like a crazy person, but people do crazy things for love.
*
“Love?” Sam deadpans. “Love as in, love?”
“Well, he said soulmate,” Blaine says, smiling fondly at the memory.
Sam rolls his eyes. “He was answering your crossword dilemma. C’mon dude, even I would have gotten that one.”
Blaine glares. “You’re ruining this for me, you know.”
“Actually, you’re ruining this for you, but nice try.”
He looks at the basket of forgotten laundry on the coffee table. If only the boy had been there. Blaine would have said the perfect thing, and they would have gotten to talking...
“Can you maybe not put your jizz socks where we eat?” Sam asks, giving Blaine’s arm a quick jab.
“I don’t--” Blaine whines. “They’re not--”
“I swear to god one of them just shattered.”
He smacks Sam’s arm in retaliation. “I wouldn’t disgrace my socks like that.”
“I wouldn’t disgrace my socks like that,” Sam mimics.
Sometimes Blaine thinks that Sam is the brother he never had, but then he remembers that he already has one. And he hates them both equally.
He should really give Cooper a call sometime this week.
“You could do that whole missed connections thing,” Sam suggests after a moment. He must sense that Blaine is about to go into sulking mode. He is correct in this assumption. “I saw you at the laundromat. Wanna get all up in my wash cycle?”
Blaine puts his feet up on the coffee table, right next to the basket. “I want a boyfriend, not a hookup.”
“Who says it can’t be both?”
Blaine sticks his tongue out at Sam.
*
This time, they’re both at the laundromat. They’re the only ones there. The normally harsh lightning has dulled to a pleasant glow. Blaine smiles, and so does the stranger.
It’s not long before he has Blaine pressed up against the dryer. The vibrations are so strong that he wonders if someone tossed a shoe in there or something. Seriously. Whoa.
There is no awkwardness, no excess of saliva. There’s no pesky need to come up for air. The boy keeps letting out these awesome little sounds and Blaine feels like one suave motherfucker.
The dryer buzzer goes off.
Unfortunately, so does his alarm.
Blaine rubs his eyes, grimacing at the stickiness of his sheets. As juvenile as a wet dream about his crush might be, he has to give himself credit for creative usage of laundry equipment.
*
So fresh and so clean clean! :D
Sam texts him and tells him to stop instagramming his entire day. According to him, it’s getting old.
Blaine is pretty sure that he’s just jealous.
He’s been trying to show up at the laundromat at different times over the past few weeks. Mornings are a no go, and evenings are just plain weird. Seriously, do some of these people live here? A boy around Blaine's age tried to hold the last dryer hostage in exchange for his number last week. Blaine had given him a fake just to get him off his back. The guy had been cute, but he wasn’t Blaine's crossword puzzle soulmate.
There has been no sign of the boy he’s been trying to bump into, and Blaine is about to give up.
It’s been exhilarating, having such a ridiculous crush, but it’s getting to the point where it’s mostly sad and exhausting.
Maybe he had dreamt the whole thing up. He hadn’t been getting much sleep lately.
The front door dings, signalling an incoming customer. Blaine looks up before he can stop himself. Force of habit. He can’t help it.
He draws in a shocked breath.
It’s him.
He’s lugging a basket of laundry and looking just as beautiful as Blaine remembered. He should say something. He should offer to help. His mind is racing. Even though he intended to rehearse their next meeting, even though he planned to have to the perfect words to say...
All he seems to have are the hiccups. The quick, surprised intake of breath he took when the boy entered has resulted in the pesky little fuckers. Blaine tries holding his breath, he tries thinking of scary things, but it seems to make things worse.
The boy, of course, starts loading his clothes into the washer beside Blaine’s. This universe hates him.
“Hi,” he says brightly, his expression letting on that he at least recognizes Blaine. It’s pretty clear that he’s not on Blaine’s level though, memory-wise. Nope. No obsessing and creepy planning has been done on his part. Probably.
“Hi.” Hic. Blaine's eyes sting with stupid, hiccup-related tears. “Come here often?”
“Do you have the hiccups?” the boy asks, sitting down beside him.
“No.” Blaine’s chest contracts with another hiccup, and his face reddens. “Maybe.”
He smiles. The polite kind that doesn’t show teeth and may or may not be completely condescending. “Did you try holding your breath?”
Blaine nods.
“Did you know there’s a spider hanging directly above your head?”
His eyes widen. The second the words sink in, he ducks his head and lunges away from his chair as quickly as he can.
When he feels far enough away from the chair, Blaine looks back over. The boy is laughing.
“Sorry,” he says, shaking his head. He looks like he’s trying not to smile. “It’s just - your face. You should have seen it. My Dad, he does that to me whenever I get the hiccups. I’ve never had a chance to do it to someone else before.”
Blaine looks around his chair, just to make sure the boy’s telling the truth. Once satisfied, he reclaims his seat. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“Well, it worked, didn’t it?”
Blaine frowns. He’s right, it did.
“I’m Kurt, by the way.”
Kurt. He looks like a Kurt. That makes no sense, but Blaine is pretty sure that it’s true anyway. “Blaine,” he replies. “And thanks for that, I guess.”
“Anytime!” After a few moments, Kurt pulls a magazine out of his messenger bag and begins flipping through it. Blaine pulls out his phone and begins shooting off passive aggressive texts to Sam regarding dinner plans.
They sit in comfortable silence. It’s nice.
Blaine wants to say something, but he doesn’t want to interrupt Kurt’s reading. He considers giving himself the hiccups again, but thinks better of it.
At least now he has a name to go with the face.
Kurt.
“I’m just now recalling that you asked if I come here often,” Kurt says after a moment. “You really just asked me that. It’s a laundromat. I come here when I need to do laundry.”
“I really did,” Blaine groans. Out of all of the things he could have said.
Kurt dog ears a page in the magazine he was flipping through and slips it back into his bag. “So, question. Were you... hitting on me? I only ask because I have a history of misinterpreting these situations. So, just to be clear, was it or was it not a come on?”
“I thought we had a moment or something,” Blaine shrugs. “The crossword thing?”
Kurt’s eyes light up in realization. “That time I gave you the answer to your crossword puzzle? That was a moment?”
“It felt like one,” Blaine says, crossing his arms. “I don’t know... maybe I’m the one misinterpreting things.”
Kurt chuckles. “I’m sorry. I really don’t get out much. My life is a mess.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed,” Blaine smiles.
“I’m someone’s assistant when all I want is to have my own assistant. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Isabelle is great, but I don’t have the time to take care of myself, let alone her. I’m studying fashion design, and instead of making a group of friends who share my interests, I only seem to be making enemies.” Kurt pulls on the string of his worn looking hoodie. Blaine has a feeling that it’s one of those articles of clothing that costs more than it looks, from the artsy way it seems to be tattered. “And right about now you’re wishing you never started a conversation with me.”
“You’re the one that said hi,” Blaine points out. “But no, that’s not what I’m thinking. I’m thinking that I saw a really cute boy at the laundromat a few weeks ago and I’ve been so busy building him up in my head that I never stopped to realized that he might be just as much of a spaz as I am. Don’t worry, it’s a good thing.
“I live with one of my friends from high school. Most of the time he’s the biggest pain in my ass, but the rest of the time I’m pretty sure I’d be lost without him. I don’t have an assistant, I’m not an assistant, and I have no idea what I’m majoring in. I literally have no idea what I’m doing aside from wasting my parents’ money on rent. Trust me, you’re doing a lot better than you think you are.”
Kurt leans back in his chair a little and looks over at Blaine. “This is a little too deep for the rinse cycle.”
“I was hoping to wait for the spin cycle to share my existential crisis, but whatever.”
“You remembered me?”
“Hm?”
“From that day with the crossword. You remembered me?”
“Well,” Blaine ducks his head, blushes. “You’re pretty memorable.”
Kurt shakes his head slightly. “I’m not used to being memorable.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
Kurt rolls his eyes. “Give me your hand.”
Blaine holds out his hand warily. “Will I get it back?”
“Maybe.”
Kurt pulls a pen out of his bag. (Seriously? What’s in there? He seems to have the universe in that thing.) He pulls the pen cap off with his teeth. With the pen cap braced between his lips, Kurt tugs Blaine’s hand gently towards him. He writes his name, and then his phone number.
Blaine’s heart stutters.
“Maybe next time we can run into each other somewhere that doesn’t smell like laundry soap and despair,” Kurt tells him.
“Maybe.”
*
Kurt from the laundromat. The beautiful mess. Blaine doesn’t think he’s in love anymore, but he could be someday. It’s more powerful that loving the idea of a person, that’s for sure.
*
They don’t run into each other again.
Blaine had thought they might, but they don’t.
He could call, but he’s nervous. There’s something so horrifyingly awkward about forming friendships. Especially when you’re asking to see someone outside of the place you normally find them. It’s the worry that the careful rapport built up over time will dissolve in a new setting.
He had copied Kurt’s number into his phone the second he got home, but it’s been two weeks and Blaine still hasn’t called him.
At first, Blaine had thought about keeping the ten digits on his hand until he made his move, but that only lasted a day. Blaine prides himself on cleanliness.
“You have his number,” Sam says.
“I do.”
“You have his number, the guy you have been whining about since like, forever. You have his number, and you haven’t called.”
Blaine nods.
“And you won’t call?”
“That’s pretty much it.” Blaine stares down at the place on his palm where the numbers have long faded.
For a second, Blaine thinks that Sam will drop it. He’s a nice friend. He knows when to let Blaine brood on his own.
Instead, Sam grabs Blaine’s phone from the coffee table and selects Kurt’s number. Blaine tries to grab the phone from Sam, but Sam is stronger and wins out.
When it starts to ring, he hands it to Blaine.
Blaine considers hanging up, but then he would be the creepy hang-up guy. Then, when he eventually calls him and they fall in love and get married, Kurt will figure out that he was weird hang-up guy. (Okay, he’ll probably put two and two together sometime before that, but whatever.)
“You’re welcome,” Sam grins, and then vacates the living room.
Asshole.
“Hello?”
“Blaine!” he says quickly. Much too loudly, judging by the way it takes Kurt a moment to respond.
“This isn’t--” He pauses. “Oh! This must be Blaine. Hi, Blaine. I’m glad you called.”
“Sorry,” Blaine groans, fearing he’s already ruined things. He kicks his feet up on the coffee table. “I’m really bad on the phone. Texting is usually easier. Hell, even a carrier pigeon would be preferable.”
“Well, lord knows there are enough pigeons in New York City. Might as well put some of them to work.”
Blaine laughs.
As it turns out, Kurt is excellent at the art of phone conversation. So much so that the next hour flies by without Blaine noticing.
*
“Confession.” They’re having coffee a few days later, and it’s going well. Naturally, Blaine has to try and ruin it.
“Shoot,” Kurt nods.
Blaine toys with the cardboard sleeve on his coffee cup. “When I met you, I was really starting to think that my life was some sort of romantic comedy. I blame the crossword puzzle and the gazes locking across the room.”
“I was sitting next to you.”
“What?”
“Our gazes didn’t lock across the room,” Kurt says, rolling his eyes. “I was sitting next to you. I was looking for quiet company and the boy doing the crossword puzzle seemed like my best bet.”
“So it wasn’t like, some big moment for you?” Blaine asks, his lips curving into a teasing smile.
“It was either sit next to you or the lady with the three little kids running around.” Kurt shrugs. “I don’t know, not everything has to be some big, romantic moment. I think the best moments happen quietly, when you’re least expecting them.”
“That’s sort of romantic, you know,” Blaine says, unable to help his smile.
Kurt shakes his head, but he smiles back. “Shut up.”
Blaine takes his hand, and Kurt’s thumb brushes over the spot where the ten numbers used to be.
*
This is the part of the story where they might live happily ever after.
Maybe even a line or two about it only taking six loads of laundry to fall in love.
Well, this isn’t that story.
But it’s a start.
Author gameboycolor
Pairing: Klaine
Spoilers: None
Warnings: I don't know. It's pretty cheesy?
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~3000
Summary: Kurt and Blaine meet at a laundromat. Fo oddwritesstuff.
A/N: Thank you ourlivesareweird, for the betaing. <3
There is a laundry room in Blaine’s apartment complex. Unfortunately, he is unable to use it unless he plans to guard his laundry throughout the entire cycle.
This doesn’t always deter the zombie-like inhabitants of his apartment complex. He once woke up to the woman in 3B removing his sopping wet clothing from the wash and putting it in the floor. In addition to that, the machines have stolen roughly five dollars from him over the past two months.
For these reasons, and these reasons alone, he has found himself a regular at Suds, the local laundromat.
Blaine sighs and erases another word from his crossword puzzle. This is why he never does these things in pen.
An eight letter word for ‘dating-service goal.’
Husband doesn’t fit, neither does wife. It’s not lover, and it’s not match. He’s about ready to toss the damn magazine in the trash. Who cares about some stupid puzzle, anyway? He brought his iPad, after all; maybe he can just play some mindless game until it’s time to put his clothes in the dryer.
He sighs. “An eight letter word for dating-service goal. Can I just cross out some of the boxes and call it a day?”
“Have you tried soulmate?” the boy beside him asks.
Blaine looks over. He doesn’t know how he didn’t notice him when he entered. He’s gorgeous, and Blaine suddenly feels very plain in his laundry day cargo shorts and old show choir t-shirt. “Uh, no. That would really lame.” He pencils it in anyway, though, and letting out a triumphant - “Ah ha!” when it fits.
The boy quirks a brow at him.
“I’ve been trying to get that one for like, an hour,” Blaine explains.
The stranger smiles, but he doesn’t say anything else. Instead, he folds his laundry. This makes sense, because they’re at a laundromat. Blaine wants to keep talking to him, but he looks so focused on his task that he doesn’t want to interrupt.
Returning to his puzzle, Blaine finds that the rest of the answers come to mind quickly with that particular word out of the way. He finishes right before his washer goes off.
It’s not until he remembers to thank the boy that Blaine notices that he’s alone.
*
When Blaine gets back to his apartment, he considers taking a moment to bang his head against the wall. He had found himself in the middle of one of those movie magic moment. The perfect crossword puzzle answer, the ordinary setting, eyes meeting across the room --
Okay, okay - he might have not even been gay, but if he had? Perfect moment. He could have made a joke about dryer sheets (not that he has any jokes about dryer sheets), and they would have laughed.
Exchanged names, numbers, a few smiles.
Blaine glares at the hamper full of fresh laundry, as if it is to blame for this.
After a moment, he tugs out a sweatshirt, hoping that its lingering warmth and fresh lilac scent will make him feel better about earlier.
It doesn’t.
But he's pretty sure he's found another reason to keep hanging out at that laundromat.
*
Blaine doesn’t even have laundry to do today. He’s brought in a hamper of mostly clean clothing. The sweaty gym clothes are mixed in with the lilac scented socks and it reminds him vaguely of middle school boys drenched in bad cologne.
Once he realizes that the mystery boy is nowhere to be found, he quickly turns around and leaves the laundromat.
He’s aware that he probably looks like a crazy person, but people do crazy things for love.
*
“Love?” Sam deadpans. “Love as in, love?”
“Well, he said soulmate,” Blaine says, smiling fondly at the memory.
Sam rolls his eyes. “He was answering your crossword dilemma. C’mon dude, even I would have gotten that one.”
Blaine glares. “You’re ruining this for me, you know.”
“Actually, you’re ruining this for you, but nice try.”
He looks at the basket of forgotten laundry on the coffee table. If only the boy had been there. Blaine would have said the perfect thing, and they would have gotten to talking...
“Can you maybe not put your jizz socks where we eat?” Sam asks, giving Blaine’s arm a quick jab.
“I don’t--” Blaine whines. “They’re not--”
“I swear to god one of them just shattered.”
He smacks Sam’s arm in retaliation. “I wouldn’t disgrace my socks like that.”
“I wouldn’t disgrace my socks like that,” Sam mimics.
Sometimes Blaine thinks that Sam is the brother he never had, but then he remembers that he already has one. And he hates them both equally.
He should really give Cooper a call sometime this week.
“You could do that whole missed connections thing,” Sam suggests after a moment. He must sense that Blaine is about to go into sulking mode. He is correct in this assumption. “I saw you at the laundromat. Wanna get all up in my wash cycle?”
Blaine puts his feet up on the coffee table, right next to the basket. “I want a boyfriend, not a hookup.”
“Who says it can’t be both?”
Blaine sticks his tongue out at Sam.
*
This time, they’re both at the laundromat. They’re the only ones there. The normally harsh lightning has dulled to a pleasant glow. Blaine smiles, and so does the stranger.
It’s not long before he has Blaine pressed up against the dryer. The vibrations are so strong that he wonders if someone tossed a shoe in there or something. Seriously. Whoa.
There is no awkwardness, no excess of saliva. There’s no pesky need to come up for air. The boy keeps letting out these awesome little sounds and Blaine feels like one suave motherfucker.
The dryer buzzer goes off.
Unfortunately, so does his alarm.
Blaine rubs his eyes, grimacing at the stickiness of his sheets. As juvenile as a wet dream about his crush might be, he has to give himself credit for creative usage of laundry equipment.
*
So fresh and so clean clean! :D
Sam texts him and tells him to stop instagramming his entire day. According to him, it’s getting old.
Blaine is pretty sure that he’s just jealous.
He’s been trying to show up at the laundromat at different times over the past few weeks. Mornings are a no go, and evenings are just plain weird. Seriously, do some of these people live here? A boy around Blaine's age tried to hold the last dryer hostage in exchange for his number last week. Blaine had given him a fake just to get him off his back. The guy had been cute, but he wasn’t Blaine's crossword puzzle soulmate.
There has been no sign of the boy he’s been trying to bump into, and Blaine is about to give up.
It’s been exhilarating, having such a ridiculous crush, but it’s getting to the point where it’s mostly sad and exhausting.
Maybe he had dreamt the whole thing up. He hadn’t been getting much sleep lately.
The front door dings, signalling an incoming customer. Blaine looks up before he can stop himself. Force of habit. He can’t help it.
He draws in a shocked breath.
It’s him.
He’s lugging a basket of laundry and looking just as beautiful as Blaine remembered. He should say something. He should offer to help. His mind is racing. Even though he intended to rehearse their next meeting, even though he planned to have to the perfect words to say...
All he seems to have are the hiccups. The quick, surprised intake of breath he took when the boy entered has resulted in the pesky little fuckers. Blaine tries holding his breath, he tries thinking of scary things, but it seems to make things worse.
The boy, of course, starts loading his clothes into the washer beside Blaine’s. This universe hates him.
“Hi,” he says brightly, his expression letting on that he at least recognizes Blaine. It’s pretty clear that he’s not on Blaine’s level though, memory-wise. Nope. No obsessing and creepy planning has been done on his part. Probably.
“Hi.” Hic. Blaine's eyes sting with stupid, hiccup-related tears. “Come here often?”
“Do you have the hiccups?” the boy asks, sitting down beside him.
“No.” Blaine’s chest contracts with another hiccup, and his face reddens. “Maybe.”
He smiles. The polite kind that doesn’t show teeth and may or may not be completely condescending. “Did you try holding your breath?”
Blaine nods.
“Did you know there’s a spider hanging directly above your head?”
His eyes widen. The second the words sink in, he ducks his head and lunges away from his chair as quickly as he can.
When he feels far enough away from the chair, Blaine looks back over. The boy is laughing.
“Sorry,” he says, shaking his head. He looks like he’s trying not to smile. “It’s just - your face. You should have seen it. My Dad, he does that to me whenever I get the hiccups. I’ve never had a chance to do it to someone else before.”
Blaine looks around his chair, just to make sure the boy’s telling the truth. Once satisfied, he reclaims his seat. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“Well, it worked, didn’t it?”
Blaine frowns. He’s right, it did.
“I’m Kurt, by the way.”
Kurt. He looks like a Kurt. That makes no sense, but Blaine is pretty sure that it’s true anyway. “Blaine,” he replies. “And thanks for that, I guess.”
“Anytime!” After a few moments, Kurt pulls a magazine out of his messenger bag and begins flipping through it. Blaine pulls out his phone and begins shooting off passive aggressive texts to Sam regarding dinner plans.
They sit in comfortable silence. It’s nice.
Blaine wants to say something, but he doesn’t want to interrupt Kurt’s reading. He considers giving himself the hiccups again, but thinks better of it.
At least now he has a name to go with the face.
Kurt.
“I’m just now recalling that you asked if I come here often,” Kurt says after a moment. “You really just asked me that. It’s a laundromat. I come here when I need to do laundry.”
“I really did,” Blaine groans. Out of all of the things he could have said.
Kurt dog ears a page in the magazine he was flipping through and slips it back into his bag. “So, question. Were you... hitting on me? I only ask because I have a history of misinterpreting these situations. So, just to be clear, was it or was it not a come on?”
“I thought we had a moment or something,” Blaine shrugs. “The crossword thing?”
Kurt’s eyes light up in realization. “That time I gave you the answer to your crossword puzzle? That was a moment?”
“It felt like one,” Blaine says, crossing his arms. “I don’t know... maybe I’m the one misinterpreting things.”
Kurt chuckles. “I’m sorry. I really don’t get out much. My life is a mess.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed,” Blaine smiles.
“I’m someone’s assistant when all I want is to have my own assistant. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Isabelle is great, but I don’t have the time to take care of myself, let alone her. I’m studying fashion design, and instead of making a group of friends who share my interests, I only seem to be making enemies.” Kurt pulls on the string of his worn looking hoodie. Blaine has a feeling that it’s one of those articles of clothing that costs more than it looks, from the artsy way it seems to be tattered. “And right about now you’re wishing you never started a conversation with me.”
“You’re the one that said hi,” Blaine points out. “But no, that’s not what I’m thinking. I’m thinking that I saw a really cute boy at the laundromat a few weeks ago and I’ve been so busy building him up in my head that I never stopped to realized that he might be just as much of a spaz as I am. Don’t worry, it’s a good thing.
“I live with one of my friends from high school. Most of the time he’s the biggest pain in my ass, but the rest of the time I’m pretty sure I’d be lost without him. I don’t have an assistant, I’m not an assistant, and I have no idea what I’m majoring in. I literally have no idea what I’m doing aside from wasting my parents’ money on rent. Trust me, you’re doing a lot better than you think you are.”
Kurt leans back in his chair a little and looks over at Blaine. “This is a little too deep for the rinse cycle.”
“I was hoping to wait for the spin cycle to share my existential crisis, but whatever.”
“You remembered me?”
“Hm?”
“From that day with the crossword. You remembered me?”
“Well,” Blaine ducks his head, blushes. “You’re pretty memorable.”
Kurt shakes his head slightly. “I’m not used to being memorable.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
Kurt rolls his eyes. “Give me your hand.”
Blaine holds out his hand warily. “Will I get it back?”
“Maybe.”
Kurt pulls a pen out of his bag. (Seriously? What’s in there? He seems to have the universe in that thing.) He pulls the pen cap off with his teeth. With the pen cap braced between his lips, Kurt tugs Blaine’s hand gently towards him. He writes his name, and then his phone number.
Blaine’s heart stutters.
“Maybe next time we can run into each other somewhere that doesn’t smell like laundry soap and despair,” Kurt tells him.
“Maybe.”
*
Kurt from the laundromat. The beautiful mess. Blaine doesn’t think he’s in love anymore, but he could be someday. It’s more powerful that loving the idea of a person, that’s for sure.
*
They don’t run into each other again.
Blaine had thought they might, but they don’t.
He could call, but he’s nervous. There’s something so horrifyingly awkward about forming friendships. Especially when you’re asking to see someone outside of the place you normally find them. It’s the worry that the careful rapport built up over time will dissolve in a new setting.
He had copied Kurt’s number into his phone the second he got home, but it’s been two weeks and Blaine still hasn’t called him.
At first, Blaine had thought about keeping the ten digits on his hand until he made his move, but that only lasted a day. Blaine prides himself on cleanliness.
“You have his number,” Sam says.
“I do.”
“You have his number, the guy you have been whining about since like, forever. You have his number, and you haven’t called.”
Blaine nods.
“And you won’t call?”
“That’s pretty much it.” Blaine stares down at the place on his palm where the numbers have long faded.
For a second, Blaine thinks that Sam will drop it. He’s a nice friend. He knows when to let Blaine brood on his own.
Instead, Sam grabs Blaine’s phone from the coffee table and selects Kurt’s number. Blaine tries to grab the phone from Sam, but Sam is stronger and wins out.
When it starts to ring, he hands it to Blaine.
Blaine considers hanging up, but then he would be the creepy hang-up guy. Then, when he eventually calls him and they fall in love and get married, Kurt will figure out that he was weird hang-up guy. (Okay, he’ll probably put two and two together sometime before that, but whatever.)
“You’re welcome,” Sam grins, and then vacates the living room.
Asshole.
“Hello?”
“Blaine!” he says quickly. Much too loudly, judging by the way it takes Kurt a moment to respond.
“This isn’t--” He pauses. “Oh! This must be Blaine. Hi, Blaine. I’m glad you called.”
“Sorry,” Blaine groans, fearing he’s already ruined things. He kicks his feet up on the coffee table. “I’m really bad on the phone. Texting is usually easier. Hell, even a carrier pigeon would be preferable.”
“Well, lord knows there are enough pigeons in New York City. Might as well put some of them to work.”
Blaine laughs.
As it turns out, Kurt is excellent at the art of phone conversation. So much so that the next hour flies by without Blaine noticing.
*
“Confession.” They’re having coffee a few days later, and it’s going well. Naturally, Blaine has to try and ruin it.
“Shoot,” Kurt nods.
Blaine toys with the cardboard sleeve on his coffee cup. “When I met you, I was really starting to think that my life was some sort of romantic comedy. I blame the crossword puzzle and the gazes locking across the room.”
“I was sitting next to you.”
“What?”
“Our gazes didn’t lock across the room,” Kurt says, rolling his eyes. “I was sitting next to you. I was looking for quiet company and the boy doing the crossword puzzle seemed like my best bet.”
“So it wasn’t like, some big moment for you?” Blaine asks, his lips curving into a teasing smile.
“It was either sit next to you or the lady with the three little kids running around.” Kurt shrugs. “I don’t know, not everything has to be some big, romantic moment. I think the best moments happen quietly, when you’re least expecting them.”
“That’s sort of romantic, you know,” Blaine says, unable to help his smile.
Kurt shakes his head, but he smiles back. “Shut up.”
Blaine takes his hand, and Kurt’s thumb brushes over the spot where the ten numbers used to be.
*
This is the part of the story where they might live happily ever after.
Maybe even a line or two about it only taking six loads of laundry to fall in love.
Well, this isn’t that story.
But it’s a start.