your shouted cursive [1/2] for GLITTERDOVES
Title: your shouted cursive (i've been reading) 1/2
Recipient: glitterdoves
Author/Artist: gingerrstar
Rating: pg-13
Word Count: 14,395
Summary: contrary to whatever beliefs mrs. gravitts and the rest of his taste-unconscious, bone breaking fellow classmates had held on the subject, all kurt could think of when it came to his childhood was brando and beethoven.
When Kurt Hummel was six days shy of ten years old, his Language Arts teacher gave him an assignment. Mrs. Gravitts was an ancient speck of a woman, as tall as she was wide and smelling like the chrysanthemums that Kurt had had decaying in a jar on his sill for months. Even considering her less-than-countable age, Kurt was fairly certain she had never smiled, at least not at him in any right. The thought made Kurt quake his heels together with nervousness and plot various ways for those horribly-floral patterned skirts she always swallowed herself in to die an undignified, fiery death. She may have been older than he could count, but some things were just not acceptable.
The assignment, as it turns out, was not the most horrible thing ever. He might let her keep one skirt after all, as long as she never again wore it in his presence. Mostly, as Kurt’s dad likes to recount, he spent the next week scouring the house for any and all misplaced sheet music-- ripped back pages, unidentified middles, pieces that Kurt already knew how to play through completely by heart. He figured that out of all the kids’ projects, his would stand out against the endless sea of pet pictures and scanned x-rays of broken bones. Because honestly, how many ways could there be to answer a prompt of ‘tell me about your childhood’?
What he forgot to really consider was that fact that Mrs. Gravitts, as usual, didn’t entirely get it. He’d glued all of the piano sheets he’d collected to a large piece of poster board, arranged in such a way that the pointed corners formed a burst at the center, cut the poster board into a large heart shape, and then used his best silver glitter to finish the edges. It had looked fabulous, exemplary-- symbolically solid A+ material. Mrs. Gravitts had called it ‘lovely but lacking’ and given him a C.
It was those hideous skirts of hers; he was sure of it.
---
Contrary to whatever beliefs Mrs. Gravitts and the rest of his taste-unconscious, bone breaking fellow classmates had held on the subject, all Kurt could think of when it came to his childhood was Brando and Beethoven.
He remembers it, in a sensory way: his mother folding him down in front of the television while she tried to sneak away to the piano in peace, only to find Kurt climbing up onto the bench beside her mere moments later as if called away by some premature intuition. His father likes to tell him the stories, Kurt buried in stacks of old black and white VHS tapes, finding him curled asleep next to his mother while she played, but Kurt remembers fine on his own. He remembers the heavy, plodding first note that echoed above the tin speech of the actors on the screen, remembers bounding around the stair landing to reach it, rolling his sweater sleeves up to feel the maternal softness of his mother’s skin against his own, pressing his fingers to hers as she played, learning, memorizing the stroke of it in his brain like a vice.
He remembers, especially, the silence-- and the way he sat in front of the piano for years after, watching it-- an ominous tower draped with a large woolen sheet as if it were a ghost. Sometimes, he likes to think it was a ghost. It was the only one he’d had.
---
The piano he sits in front of now, the one he’s sat in front of for the last four years, is decidedly unfamiliar and yet hauntingly familiar at the same time. It’s uncovered, for one, large and gleaming black, and its keys slide tantalizing along his fingers like refrigerated butter. Kurt’s dad hasn’t thought to dust the upright in years, but this one is so clean that Kurt can preen to his reflection in the propped open back cover, much to Ms. Winslow’s constantly feigned irritation.
“Kurt, sweetheart, the piano isn’t a suitor-- sit back down.” She’s probably not even looking at him, doesn’t have to, which he thinks is mildly hilarious by now. He sits anyway, sliding to the perfect center of the bench, his back ramrod straight. His right cheek may have a slightly unsightly flush, and his hair may be a bit limper than it was when he sprayed it this morning, but he can be the perfect pupil. Perfect-- something.
Ms. Winslow clenches and un-clenches her fingers next to him, flipping through her ‘important notebook of important papers,’ and Kurt watches her glasses slide down the bridge of her nose, her wedding band roll around the thin band of her fourth finger.
“I have an idea I want you to consider, Kurt,” she says, and Kurt is just sitting there plunking a low-register G as she speaks, his other hand folded neatly in his lap. “There’s this boy, another of my students--” Kurt is almost suspicious for a second, really, and he goes so far as to still his moving finger over the key, “I’d like you to play a duet with him.”
The air goes steadily out of Kurt’s lungs like a sigh, and really, maybe it is-- even in spite of the fact that the thought of playing with someone else makes his head spin. How is he supposed to place himself, to sit-- how is he supposed to find his own unique “voice” if he’s too preoccupied trying to deal with someone else’s? “Ms. Winslow, um-- I’m really not sure this is...” he tries, “I just, you know I might be busy with like, my dad and--” Ms. Winslow continues to regard him with a raised eyebrow, unimpressed with his, admittedly, meager attempts at weaseling out of a situation that is about as harmless as being hit with a pound of pillows.
“I just want opportunities for you, Kurt, honey,” she places her worn hand against the skin of his arm and it feels slick with age, cool and comforting, “you’ll never grow if you don’t--”
Kurt relinquishes, eyes closing, with a heavy breath of “I’ll do it,” and hey, it can’t logically be any worse than spending every second lunch washing blue slushie from his scalp, really, “I’ll do it.”
Ms. Winslow smiles at him, then, like she knows something, or maybe just like she’s pleased with his sudden ability to acquiesce to her desires without the huff of routine complaint he usually sidles her with. And okay, yeah-- he knows he can be a bit of a high maintenance pain-in-the-ass a lot of the time, but seriously-- it’s not like his experiences with duets have gone over very-- well, to put it lightly. He has reasons.
As he packs up for the night-- music in his folder case, phone in his coat pocket, hairspray in the side compartment of his saddle bag-- he listens to Ms. Winslow faintly clicking her pen in and out as she scratches a set of notes down. Just as he’s hitching his bags up onto the bone of his shoulder and about to leave, she pauses him with a, “Kurt, honey-- wait,” and when he turns back to her, she’s holding out a receipt with a faint scrawl across the back. He takes it silently with a gloved hand. “The boy’s number,” she explains, and oh, well, that makes sense of the Blaine Anderson notated across the top with a couple sets of numbers beneath, “I’ll probably forget to give it to you next week, so-- in case.”
Kurt pockets it, the paper crinkling slightly under his fingers, and turns for the door. “Next week,” he says, waggling his fingers in a small, quaint wave, retrieving his forgotten cup of takeout coffee from the lid of the piano as he goes.
On his way down the front corridor, he listens to the satisfying sound of his heels clicking across the solid block tile, one after the other in some sort of strange cadence. It maybe sounds like the vague rhythm of that dance jam Mercedes had made him listen to in the car the other day, and he thinks that Finn would probably say it sounded a lot like the snapped triplet of a drum beat or something. Mostly, to Kurt’s refined taste, it sounds like the smooth chunk of polished heel and delicious patent leather, like the three crisp hundred dollar bills he handed over to the saleslady to purchase them last month. Ah, sound of victory.
He’s smirking to himself, like a secret, strutting down the long expanse of hallway and tugging the lid off of his lukewarm cappuccino when oh. The boy walking towards him isn’t aware of his presence, or well, at least he isn’t actively so-thank god-- but oh is he lovely. Kurt is fairly certain he’s died and gone to like, some really fucked up form of teen gay heaven where boys look like that and he isn’t even dreaming. The boy is short but not small, really, with thin wrists and strong, square hands that grip around the bundle of sheet music he’s carrying. Kurt feels his feet falter and his eyes follow the boy’s movements up and down, appraising his outfit for good measure and oh, does he approve. Cream and black striped top, wine red cardigan that’s buttoned to halfway up his chest, grey pants that cling-good gaga-in all the right places, and yum.
The boy keeps walking, nearly passed him, and Kurt is suddenly very grateful that the boy is heartily absorbed in the screen of his phone, because he can feel his face heating up and his ears are likely flushing seven shades of unattractive scarlet and just ugh. Kurt can’t keep his eyes from straying over, even as the boy continues away and he spends so much time between the picture window and the front door cataloging the darkly curled coif of the boy’s hair, the attractive downward slope of his nose, that he’s walking to his car before he realizes his hand has somehow tilted awkwardly and he’s spilled offending pumpkin cappuccino all over the top of his mint-condition designer boots. He wants to die, and scream, but mostly he wants to get to the point in his young life where he stops being the fumbling virgin of all virgins who ruins perfectly perfect footwear at the mere sight of a cute guy and starts being a little less ridiculous.
---
“God, I’m so so sorry I’m late,” he’s ridiculously out of breath from running all the way from his car to the back rehearsal room-and in three inch heels no less-but as the door swings open and he looks over at the piano, it’s definitely not Ms. Winslow who awaits him. “Um, hi?” is all he can think to say as he lets his feet rest, reaching back to click the door shut. The intruding stranger turns around at the sound of his voice and-- oh shit, oh shit, oh shit-- fate is obviously fucking with him big time this week, he’s sure of it; this has to be some form of a sick-though very attractive, his brain unhelpfully supplies-joke. Kurt feels like his feet are weighted to the floor as the boy smiles at him, large and toothy, rubbing a hand lightly against the side of his hair that looks some version of mind numbingly curly and perfectly styled at the same time and all he can manage himself is to stand there dazedly, his hands gripping awkwardly at his bag straps, cheeks going blotchy with heat.
“Hey,” the boy says, easy and offhand, and Kurt can only imagine the time that passes while he’s stuck there looking dumbfounded, absently memorizing the curl of the boys fingers over the charcoal corduroy of his pants, the cut of his twisted shoulders in some navy checked dress shirt that cuffs neatly at just above his elbow.
“Oh! Kurt, honey-” Ms. Winslow walks in just as he’s thanking some deity for the luck that he was running too late to bring coffee today, clicking the kitchen door shut softly behind her, “Kurt, this is the boy I was telling you about,” she then turns to address the boy, still seated spine straight, watching the scene play out with calm interest, “Blaine, this is Kurt.”
Blaine reaches out his hand, square and pale, and Kurt is propelled forward by the force of Ms. Winslow’s voice until he’s standing suddenly close to Blaine and shaking his hand lightly. “Blaine,” he says, “Anderson.” He has a strong grip, Kurt notes, but not intimidating, and even though Kurt is sure his own hand is seven kinds of dewy, his grip shaking and soft, Blaine smiles softly the whole way through.
“Kurt Hummel,” he offers in return, calming his own breathing with a quick ferocity, and okay, okay he can be unaffected, yes. He’s cool, totally fucking cool even-the master. So cool that when Blaine shifts over on the bench to make room for him to sit, he doesn’t shiver at the scent of him or hyperventilate at the way their thighs touch, he just sits down and crosses his legs neatly at the knee-amazingly cool. Ms. Winslow sits in her usual chair and Kurt focuses on her with a prim smile.
“Now, boys-duet, let’s talk about it,” she opens her book of notes and schedules and Kurt grips and un-grips his fingers against his knee, “I have to leave in about ten minutes, but we weren’t really going to do too much today, so that’s no matter-what I need to make sure today is just that you boys are both still up for doing this.” Kurt considers hesitating, backing out, even though he knows Ms. Winslow would be disappointed in him exponentially, because even more than that he knows his luck with duets, most importantly his luck with duets with boys this attractive. But he looks up and Blaine is looking at him with that smile, and he’s just told Ms. Winslow “Yes, of course!” and Kurt just-he just can’t say no to that kind of creative enthusiasm, so he nods his own affirmation softly. Ms. Winslow turns the corner of her lip up in appreciation and begins detailing them the schedule run down. Kurt looks hotly down at his own lap. He is so fucked.
It’s funny, really-that that’s all he can think of as Ms. Winslow briefs them, gushes over the potentially explosive combination of their talents-to which Kurt reacts by preening his bangs haughtily, if there is one thing he does have, praise gaga, it’s talent-and ushers them lightly out the door as she moves to leave. Blaine is, for lack of a better word, collected, with his easy smiles and calm hands and god, if his piano playing sounds half as good as his eyelashes look, then Kurt is fucked all the way to next year, easily.
They walk in quiet tandem through the hallway and out into the yard, Kurt clutching the strap of his satchel like a lifeline even though Blaine is probably the least threatening person he’s ever met ever, and he feels kind of exponentially ridiculous about it. Blaine stops him just before he reaches the door of his navigator with a hand on his shoulder and Kurt can feel the imaginary spark of his fingertips all the way down through the bone, even after Blaine’s hand is back at his side. When Kurt turns around and looks up, Blaine is holding out his cell phone like a peace offering, and, um.
“I thought we could exchange,” he explains, his other hand loping slightly in front of his chest as he speaks, “numbers that is.” Kurt takes the phone in his hand and is pleased to find it already open to a fresh contact entry. He types the numbers in carefully under Blaine’s soft gaze and then hands the phone back to him, trying not to think about the way their fingers brush.
“I, uh, I already have yours,” he says, in response to Blaine’s outstretched hand, and wow, okay that sounds kind of creepy, “Ms. Winslow gave me…”
“Ah, yes, of course,” Kurt sighs out his relief. If Blaine is creeped out, he certainly can’t tell. “Next week then.”
“Tuesday,” Kurt says, raising his hand in a small saluting wave of sorts that he is probably going to heinously regret later. Blaine laughs quietly under his breath.
“Take care, Kurt,” he says, and Kurt repeats it lightly as he watches Blaine turn and walk away to his car, making a point not to pay attention to the way that Blaine’s shirt-cuff boxes nicely on his arm that’s wrapped around a stack of music notebooks and failing rather unsurprisingly.
So fucked.
---
Kurt is sitting in glee rehearsal when his phone pings from inside his coat pocket. Mr. Schuester is giving some sort of lecture, scribbling formations on the white board across the room that Kurt is pretty sure have something to do with their group number for Regionals, but he zoned out a bit ago, more concerned with picking absently at his cuticles and imagining the ways he can massacre Mr. Schuester’s awful vest without his knowledge than paying attention. He pulls his phone out, nonchalant, and balances it on his stacked thighs, clicking the home screen open to an unknown number.
testing, testing? the first text reads, then the next, hey kurt, this is blaine.
Kurt’s stomach flops over a bit inside his sweater, and his fingers hesitate over the keys for a second before typing out a quick hey and proceeding to turn his phone over and over in his palm. His cuticles, still perfect, are seeming suddenly a very welcome distraction, and he picks listlessly at them again for a few minutes before his phone buzzes again in his hand.
any opinions on sheet music? duets? Kurt begins a reply-he has a lot of opinions, really-but before he can finish another text comes through. compiling stuff for recital, just wanted to make sure you got a say. :) and oh god, Kurt is fairly sure his expression is bordering on dopey, his body thrumming in his seat, because, objectively speaking, it’s probably the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to him, and isn’t that just sad. If someone just considering his opinions impresses him this much, he really needs to get out more.
Mr. Schue is coughing then, loud and interrupting Kurt from his bubble of thought with a sharp call of “Kurt?” Kurt scrambles at mention of his name, pocketing his phone and rocking forward in his seat, alert and poised with his hands clasped on his crossed knees.
“Yes, yes,” he stammers out, lisp getting the best of him as his heart jitters in his chest, “I’m here, yes.”
“Kurt, formations-partners,” Mr. Schue instructs, waving his hands to illustrate and Kurt looks down at most of the rest of the kids in their places on the floor, Rachel poised at the boom box with a hand placed irritatingly on her hip. Kurt begrudgingly gets up, his face hot, and steps down the risers to the direction of Brittany and Quinn. “Boys, Kurt.” Like clockwork. Of course. Yes.
He turns to stand next to Finn by the piano and Mercedes moves past him to stand with the rest of the girls, side-eyeing him with a strange curiosity. He’s not surprised; he’s fairly certain his level of giddiness is resulting in some form of visible glitter. Once they begin the steps, though, and he gets to the point in the dance where they partner up, Mercedes swoops in on him like a hawk. Thankfully they’re in the back of the formation, so the hard eyes she’s making at him go unnoticed. He’s sure that if Mr. Schuester calls him out again in class he’s going to fall into a puddle and die, regardless of Kurt’s feelings on the repetitive nature of his lesson plans.
“So who’s the secret loverboy?” She’s whispering at him as they move, but it’s got to be the least deceptive whisper he’s ever heard. The chord changes and he spins her around-oh god, is he that obvious? Not good.
“No one,” he can tell she doesn’t believe him, she never does, but he turns his nose up sharply during another spin.
“You’re pretty spun up for no one, white boy,” she smirks lightly at him, like she knows all of his secrets, and truth be told she probably does. He waits a beat, but she doesn’t continue speaking, just lets him finish leading the dance, back and forth, side, spin. His phone is heavy in the pocket of his jeans, burning electric and not doing anything to ail the obstinate patter of his heart inside his chest. And this is ridiculous, really, the fact that he’s getting so overworked at just the idea of it combined with the idea of Blaine, who Kurt should really, really not be thinking about. He knows how that ends, and it’s not well.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mercedes,” he diverts, as the number ends with the bell and he’s reaching to grab his bag, placing it on his shoulder sharply and turning on his heel to the door.
---
Kurt is splayed across the floor at Ms. Winslow’s the following week, boots propped up on two throw pillows and French textbook between his thighs, when Blaine walks in carrying what is probably the largest stack of sheet books that Kurt has ever seen in his life. The door knocks against the sole of Kurt’s boot as it opens, and Blaine drops the stack of books unceremoniously onto a chair against the wall, greeting Kurt with a quick “Hey,” before plopping down on the carpet with exhaustion.
Kurt looks over to see his eyes closed, eyelashes fanned over his cheeks, and appraises him quietly in the light of Ms. Winslow’s stained glass lamp. His outfit is decidedly simple, and Kurt really shouldn’t like it but it’s sort of perfect-he’s got on some sweater with a prep school logo, but it’s navy and oversized, which is a plus, and his jeans are black and thin, tucked into the same short dress boots. Kurt finds it all mildly endearing, and he chuckles as he closes his French textbook and slides it back into his bag. When he looks back, Blaine’s still sprawled out and he’s thrown his arms over his eyes in a ridiculous gesture. Kurt laughs, even though his cheeks and ears and the insides of his elbows are flushing at the sharp cut of Blaine’s jaw, the curl of hair over his ear. “So, you planning on us building a paper powered missile tonight with these, or--?”
Blaine props himself up on his hands and smiles, reaching over to grab stacks off the pile while he says, “Practically,” setting them in the large open ‘v’ of Kurt’s legs, “actually, I just didn’t know what to bring. I wasn’t sure what you liked cause you never texted me back.” And oh shit, he didn’t, did he? Kurt touches a hand to his own cheek reflexively and it feels even hotter. “So I just brought everything.” And Blaine is so jovial with him, smiling and unfazed by what Kurt would’ve fretted over as some intrinsic form of rejection for days. He keeps placing books in front of Kurt and when he finishes he sets himself down Indian style, hands calmly placed on his thighs. “Well,” he says, “c’mon, pick away.”
And they do, or rather, Kurt does, mostly. Blaine sits cross-legged next to his thigh with his stupid jeans and his stupid hair and his stupid ridiculous eyelashes, reaching over to point out bridges or accompaniments that he likes in particular while Kurt flips through book after book after book. And Kurt is not freaking out about the fact that Blaine’s sweater is brushing over the skin of his forearm repeatedly or the fact that Blaine occasionally decides to snatch the book from Kurt’s hands and demonstrate a particular piece on the piano. Kurt was so right about his piano playing too, it’s ridiculously, insufferably gorgeous. His hands are poised so neatly, his spine straight and stacked and strong and even though all Kurt wants to do is watch the muscles in his shoulders move with the chord changes, he has to close his eyes and let the notes wrap around him like shining silver wire.
At one point, Blaine starts to play and Kurt is tired, so tired that he almost doesn’t recognize the pattern of the notes at first, small and leaning against the frame of a bookcase. But then the bridge connect picks up and suddenly it’s like he’s not yet nine, standing in his parents’ kitchen by himself while the faint hum of a radio plays from where his mother’s bed is set up in the den. He can remember it so clearly, the lilt of the notes and how they grew in volume as he walked towards her bed, how he would bend his head over her and kiss her cheeks and then her hands, tapping his small fingers against her wrists to the beat of the song as if it would pump the music straight into her veins. Music couldn’t die, it wouldn’t ever leave-he remembers believing that it would be enough. Funny how things work out, he guesses with a bitterness he had forgotten he’d had, all these years later.
He’s so absorbed in his own memory that he barely registers Ms. Winslow leaning softly against the door frame, and he’s not entirely sure how long she’s been standing there, to be honest, but her smile is warm and pleasing, soft like a mother’s. The more that he thinks about it, really, in some ways, she kind of is one.
“Would you boys like some tea?” she asks, and Blaine’s fingers still on the keys, before rubbing once down the line of his thighs and settling in his lap, nodding his affirmation, and Kurt adds a soft, “please.” As Ms. Winslow walks back into the kitchen, her heels clicking lightly, Kurt watches Blaine with a kind of quiet solidity-this boy who is so collected, so defined and realized around the edges in a way that Kurt wishes he were-and yet Kurt recalls the easy sound of his laughter, the fan of his eyelashes as he smiles with more than his own share of teeth. And Kurt doesn’t know what to make of him really-and he’s stopped trying, to be honest-but he knows that he wants in this really fierce and sharp way, like tiny pinpricks underneath his skin that all tell him to stay close.
When Kurt looks over again, Blaine is running his fingers absently over the keys, as if wiping away dust that Kurt knows isn’t ever there. “The cups aren’t really fragile,” Ms. Winslow says as she re-enters, a teetering cup in each hand. Kurt takes his when it’s proffered to him, crossing his knees as he settles against the bookcase, and Blaine steps up to grab his own before she can reach him, sitting back down on the piano bench, but facing Kurt this time, and Kurt can see the slight burn of red on the pads of his fingers as he raises the cup to his mouth.
Kurt watches as Blaine takes a sip and then pulls it back again to blow on the rim, looking up at Kurt from beneath his eyelashes, and Kurt moves to take another sip, casting his eyes down, suddenly very interested in the carpet, his hands, the way the tea sloshes against the rim of his cup as he breathes in and out. In. Out.
In, out.
---
Kurt is really trying to focus on this geometry test, he really is.
He could’ve sworn he’d studied, has written notes down every morning and made flash cards and formula charts and he can tell a rhombus from a kite but suddenly he can’t. It’s not like math is his favorite subject at William McKinley, nor is it truly the one he’s best at, but he’s a solid A student if he studies, which he does-- until now apparently.
The test just keeps staring back at him, question after question, triangle after triangle and when he goes to fill it in all he can think of are quarter notes and half rests and chord changes and really, this is getting ridiculous. He knows that Mr. Georges likes him well enough, mostly because Kurt turns his homework in on time and it’s actually legible, but even he probably wouldn’t be too entirely pleased if Kurt were to answer all of these equations with like, detailed staff notation or insipid poetry about the unfailing attraction he has to Blaine’s strong fingers, his curved out bottom lip.
Even less impressive would be a play by play of last week’s rehearsal, he’s sure-he and Blaine sandwiched together on the piano bench, their thighs and knees and elbows touching and Ms. Winslow flitting in and out as they played through a few of the books they’d narrowed down to. Kurt can still recall the surprising softness of Blaine’s skin against his own wrist as they moved up and down octaves, Blaine’s hands jumping back and forth like children determined to win at double dutch, as Kurt’s own thin fingers worked quickly through the trilling melody.
He looks back down, expecting that maybe he’s magically figured it out somehow, but the equations stay blank in front of him, mocking him. He wants to laugh at his own utter ridiculousness, almost, but he figures that Mr. Georges wouldn’t be too fond of him for it, so he resorts to staring at the paper, willing it to answer itself.
Ten unproductive minutes later he folds his arms neatly on the desk, plops his forehead into them, and sighs.
---
“How do you even breathe in there?” Kurt is utterly perplexed, honestly, at the idea that someone could be so jovial at the idea of living in what is essentially a storage closet, and with another teenage boy no less, “Like, sometimes even the basement feels too small to contain me, I don’t know how you do it Blaine, really.” Blaine is laughing at him, low and amused, and Kurt kind of wants to smack him a bit, because his opinions are valid, damn it. He swats dismissively at the screen instead, but it only serves to make Blaine laugh harder. Kurt frowns.
“I’ll have you know-”
“Your opinions are extremely valid,” Blaine interrupts, “the most valid I’ve ever heard.” He’s deadpan when he says it and god, Blaine is mocking him, he’s mocking him-- and Kurt is torn between wanting to curl up in a ball and wanting to raise his left eyebrow with perfectly practiced precision until Blaine gives in and admits his defeat. He settles instead for blushing all the way to the very tips of his ears, nose pink and freckles burning hot marks into his cheeks.
“I’m just saying,” Kurt rests his cheeks on his hands to prevent them from being revealed to the camera, at least until they cool down, “personal space is kind of important, Blaine.”
Blaine just gives him this look of nonchalance-totally super fucking chill-and lowers his pencil to erase another line from his work, but not before turning Kurt with a flippant, “well, maybe I don’t like personal space,” mouth blooming a smirk as he downcasts his eyes. And it takes a moment to register in Kurt’s mind, really. He’s too busy staring at the spot where Blaine’s eyes were and listening to the soft squeak of eraser on paper, but when it does-oh, oh.
And now Kurt is undeniably thinking about Blaine, with his stupid voice and his stupid hands and his stupid dislike of personal space and just. He can only imagine the horribly horribly awkward situations that this is going to induce-good gaga. His nervous system just can’t catch a break.
“You don’t need to carry over the exponent if the equation is based around a quadrilateral, correct?” Blaine asks, nipping lightly at his pencil with the whites of his teeth. Kurt’s not even sure he remembers the first thing about the laws of exponents, let alone specifics.
“You do realize you’re asking this of the boy who spent his entire last math exam thinking about sheet music, right?” Blaine chuckles fondly at him. “I’m fairly certain that any algebra help I could give to you would be, well, unhelpful, to put it lightly.” And great, fabulous, he just admitted his utter ineptness in all things mathematics-no matter what his letter grade says-to a boy who is spending their late night Thursday skype session studying. He is getting seriously worse at this, really.
Blaine just pushes his algebra book to the side and folds his hands in front of him with a soft smile. “Let’s talk about that, then,” he says, and Kurt is momentarily taken aback.
“About my inability to focus on algebraic concept?” Kurt quirks a confused eyebrow. This is not about to become an academic counseling session.
“No, no-music,” Kurt lets his eyebrow down with visible relief, leaning forward in interest and Blaine smiles with all of his teeth. “I mean we both like it, clearly-” Kurt, surprisingly, looks away from Blaine long enough that he notices a figure walking around in the background, and he really, probably, shouldn’t ask-especially considering that he’s in a state of permanent flush and the front of his hair is terribly, terribly messy, but.
“Who’s that?” he asks, attempting to smooth his bang into submission as quickly and as surreptitiously as possible with a wet palm. Blaine turns around to check, then beckons the figure over with a wave of his hand, but all Kurt notices is the way Blaine twists around the frame of the chair, the definition of his arm strong and solid and distracting even in the horridly washed out light of the computer monitor.
“Roommate,” Blaine confirms, except then a t-shirt clad chest is filling half of Kurt’s computer screen and Blaine is looking up with a small “hey,” and oh, wow, he has a nice jaw. It notches slightly just below his ear, continuing down to his chin in a straight, sharp line and Kurt feels a buzzing sensation start in his gut again at the realization. The chest moves down, then, and Blaine’s roommate waves a friendly ‘hey’. Kurt smiles his best smile with none of his teeth and waves back with similar sentiment.
Blaine still as his head turned up towards the guy when he stands back up and the guy says “he your boyfriend?” in a voice clearly not meant for webcam microphone and just--what. He wasn’t even supposed to hear it, isn’t even sure if he actually did, and Kurt’s head is spinning so fast that he completely misses whatever it is Blaine says back to the guy before the guy’s gone, patting Blaine on the shoulder in exit, and Blaine’s turned back to face the camera.
“Carey’s tall,” Blaine says, and that’s somehow the most pitiful explanation of a person Kurt’s ever heard and yet it’s honestly all he pictures, blushing despite himself.
Blaine sips from a mug emblazoned with music notes, then, Kurt watching through the screen as Blaine explains its contents-white tea, a spoon of honey, lemon juice, ginger root-all apparently heaven for the throat, and Blaine promises to bring him some for next rehearsal. Kurt nods his assent with a shy smile and pointedly doesn’t say that actually, his favorite tea is peppermint, two sugars, and he can’t stand the burn of ginger root, or honey, or lemon.
---
Baking sugar cookies with Mercedes that weekend is a mess, but worth it. Her mom leaves them a cupboard full of supplies, and the note she tacked up tells them to make six batches. They make twelve.
By the end of the night they’re both covered in confectionery flour and rolling with laughter against the back of the couch. They’ve gathered all of Mercedes’ family’s blankets together in a heap and Kurt is burying his feet inside the pocket of one that he’s pretty sure depicts a faded version of Ariel the mermaid, laptop nestled warmly on a stack of pillows in front of him. Behind him, Mercedes is rifling through a bin of nail polish, noisily debating each shade with herself.
“Is that Ariel?” Blaine asks, as Kurt pulls at the top of the blanket and a slice of her red hair comes into view on the screen. Kurt immediately feels his cheeks fill with heat, toes curling loosely from inside his striped slipper socks at the sound of Blaine’s cheerful laugh.
“Uh, no?” Kurt knows he’s trying to play it off, that Blaine probably knows that, but god, it’s bad enough that he’s the very definition of a giddy schoolgirl every time they talk-he doesn’t need Blaine to think he’s a princess to top it all off. Honestly. Blaine clears his throat with a soft cough and palms a hand through the fluff of curls at the front of his head.
“So, I won’t take up too much of your bonding time,” he says, threading his fingers together and snapping them, “but I’m glad I caught you, cause-”
“Who’re you skyping over there, boo?” Mercedes interrupts, and when Kurt twists around she’s painting her toenails a sickening shade of cotton candy pink.
“Just Blaine,” he turns back dismissively and gestures at Blaine to continue, but upon notice, Blaine is busy adjusting his camera and peering through the screen at them with a sort of amused interest. In hindsight, really, he probably should’ve lied-said Finn or his aunt, or god, even Rachel-because the moment she hears the name, Mercedes caps her polish and scrambles over to where Kurt sits with an eternally embarrassing squeal of “ooh, boy, lemme see, lemme see!” She makes grabby hands at the computer, and oh god, it’s officially official-Kurt wants to die. He holds out as long as possible with his body shielding the computer screen from view, but Mercedes eventually catches him around the waist and he squawks away just enough for her to plop down next to him in front of the screen.
“Well hello, Mercedes,” Blaine greets, and even though Kurt is busy looking at his sleeves to avoid this whole situation, he knows from the tone of his voice that he’s smiling that smile that curves up, the one with all of his teeth. Mercedes is bound to be butter already.
She smacks Kurt on the thigh instead and says, “Ooh, he’s cute and polite,” Kurt is dying, dead. Dead, dead, dead. “I approve.” And then Blaine is laughing, smooth and musical, in sharp bursts that send a splotchy sort of electric heat through Kurt’s body like a live wire. Kurt bats softly at Mercedes without looking up from his knees and she giggles through it for a few minutes before Kurt resorts to flopping over onto her, his foolproof . After thirty seconds, she declares ultimate defeat and squirms over to her makeshift nail station, laughing all the way.
When Kurt looks back at Blaine he’s still laughing, smile just as Kurt had imagined and all Kurt can do without throwing up or pounding his heart straight out of his ribcage is lower his eyelashes and chuckle back. “So, so sorry about that,” he says, hot cheeks in his clammy hands, “She’s insufferable.” Mercedes makes a tut sound with her tongue from behind him and Blaine only laughs dismissively, shaking his head.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he says, and takes a small swig from a water bottle, “no, but what I got on to tell you was that I can’t make practice next week-emergency warblers practice.”
“Warblers?” Blaine takes another drink and holds a finger up to motion for a second.
“Glee Club,” he explains, after having swallowed. “So close to the spring finale-we’re pretty much on call 24/7.” Kurt watches his eyes roll slightly, though not in annoyance, and yes, yes-he gets it.
“That is something I understand all too well,” he says instead, momentarily exasperated at memories of Rachel Berry’s infamous last minute cattle call dance rehearsals before sectionals last year, “totally excusable, no worries.” Kurt pulls his knees up against his chest and smiles lightly.
“Well, I would suggest making it up on Wednesday but Ms. Winslow told me she has that night booked full, so-” Kurt can see him trying to figure it out, the solution, “I’d feel bad about missing a whole week.” He scratches against the side of his head in a gesture that Kurt would do to mean ‘nervous’ or ‘bashful’, but on Blaine just looks like ‘adorable’ and ‘probably tired.’
“We could use my house,” he blurts, even before he can think about it, or why for that matter, but it’s out there, “actually, that’s kind of a terrible idea-” he’s essentially backtracking, nervous at the thought of actual real-life Blaine in his actual real-life house, “don’t you live like two hours away?”
“No, no-it’s fine, Kurt. It’s great.” Kurt feels ridiculous, but Blaine is jovial and sweet and seven thousand other adjectives that Kurt is rightfully but unfairly saddling him with right now, “I’ll be there, what day?”
“Saturday?” Kurt suggests, “that way we’ll have time to actually, y’know-practice,” he scratches absently at a nonexistent piece of lint on his blanket covered knee as he speaks, “plus my dad will be at some fishing meeting-thing, so like, he won’t get annoyed or whatever.” More nonexistent lint pretends to appear and he continues to pick at it with the tip of his pointer finger.
“Sounds great, Kurt,” Kurt can’t look at him, he can’t-his cheeks are shot to all hell without a doubt, but Blaine’s voice is full of smile, “I can see Mercedes back there making faces, so I won’t keep you, but text me your address later so I can GPS some directions, okay?” He chuckles softly and throws his hand up in a wave, “goodnight, Kurt.” Kurt thinks that he hears himself respond with a similar admonition, but it’s like he’s separate from his brain and all he can think is-oh god, his eyes, and shit, Saturday as Blaine reaches close to the screen to click a button and the screen goes dark.
When he turns around, Mercedes is looking at him with an expression that lets him know that she knows, and okay, yes-he’s done for.
“What?” he snaps, quick and sharp, hands raised in an accusatory gesture. Mercedes just laughs like she’s laughing at him and not with him, and shakes her head.
“I didn’t say anything,” she raises her hands up in innocence and pads over to the kitchen in her zebra print pajamas, “not a thing.”
---
When his alarm goes obnoxiously off at 5:30 on a Saturday morning, Kurt figures his dad will barge in any second to sleepily demand ‘why on god’s earth’ he’s awake at such an unsightly hour. He even prepares for it, sitting Indian style on his bed with unthreateningly mussed hair and wrinkled pajamas, and pointedly not hopping right in the shower where he can successfully avoid his father for the better part of an hour. Fortunately, any questioning doesn’t happen until just after lunch, when Kurt grabs the travel bucket of cleaning supplies from under the sink and walks into the den.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, son-” Burt holds up a hand and halts him in his tracks and Kurt turns around, leaning softly against a door frame, “just where do you think you’re going with those?”
“Cleaning the piano-?” Kurt wiggles the bucket up by the side of his face, and walks back to the piano and pulls the cover off. Burt’s followed him in, now leaning against the wall with his hip and Kurt figures he should probably, well, explain, “Blaine’s coming over in a bit to practice for the recital.” He turns back to his father and he’s looking at him like Kurt somehow grew five heads in the past minute, “I told you on Thursday, dad.”
“This boy, Blaine, he’s from your glee club or something?” Kurt swipes at the keys with a damp cloth and they made dissonant non-chords into the empty air.
“No, dad,” Kurt flips an errant bang out of his face with a clean wrist, then passes the cloth over the lid, the front, the seat, “he’s a student of Ms. Winslow’s. She wants us to do a duet together and yes, I know my history of duets is-well, not the best, but she asked, like, four times, and I know I can be a bitch but there are some things I just can’t do-and one of them is saying no to a sweet old lady.”
Burt wants to laugh, or maybe chastise his son a bit for the pointless use of swear words in pleasant conversation again, but he figures, in the grand scheme of things, his son’s manners could be much worse.
“Now, Blaine is gonna be here in an hour or so, so I have to go get presentable,” Kurt picks up his bucket again to return it to the kitchen, “and I don’t know about you, but if it were my first client meeting, I’d want to be quite a bit early, just saying.” He walks into the kitchen, then, boots padding noiselessly across the carpet, and well, Burt guesses, that’s the end of that conversation.
---
Kurt hears a knock on the front door around 1:30, and his heart is hammering in his chest. He’s been sitting on the couch for the better part of twenty minutes, hair sprayed into a perfect coif and desperately willing his fidgety hands to stop picking at the threads of his jeans like some crazed asylum patient. When he gets up to open it, Blaine greets him on the other side with a warm smile and a soft “hey,” but all Kurt can do is stare dazedly and think oh.
He’s got on those pants again, the ones that cling just so, except Kurt is mostly taken with the fact that not only is he wearing a short sleeved, polka-dotted t-shirt, but he’s wearing actual, honest to god suspenders, and wow-wow, okay. They’re barely noticeable, just a dark, dark burgundy against the deep navy of his shirt, and Kurt’s known he liked clothes since, well-since he can remember, really-but he’s fairly certain he never had a clothes fetish until now. And wow, okay-that was sort of awkward and creepy, if he thinks about it, which he’s really trying not to.
“Um, Kurt?” Blaine is just standing there on his front step, shifting his weight from foot to foot, and Kurt’s been watching this whole time, but didn’t even notice, “Are you gonna let me in?”
“Oh, yes, right-yeah, yeah,” Kurt startles, blinking his eyes open and shut and moving over to motion Blaine in with a delicate hand, “Come on, this way.” He ushers Blaine through the front room with quiet direction and then when they reach the den says “I know it’s not as fancy or new as Ms. Winslow’s, but I cleaned it this morning so it should be okay.”
Blaine is just pulling their sheet music out of his shoulder bag and placing it on the sheet tray, clucking his tongue with a laugh of, “It’s great, Kurt,” sitting down on the bench and crossing his ankles together, “thanks again for this, by the way.” Kurt smiles lightly and he’s really starting to think that he should invest in some freaky, reptilian surgery to make him, like, cold blooded or something, because this blushing thing is just becoming ridiculous.
He moves to sit down on the bench next to Blaine, careful to keep at least a few inches of space between their thighs, because he knows his own limitations, and he watches as Blaine twists his hands together and cracks the knuckles of each finger in what sounds like some kind of rhythm. The thought that Blaine snaps his knuckles to a timed pattern is both endearing and kind of hilarious, if he’s being honest, and he finds himself laughing softly under his breath as Blaine spreads their sheets out across the tray and sets in.
“You just wanna do run-throughs?” Blaine asks, and Kurt is kind of listening and mostly staring at his eyelashes, so he nods dumbly for a second or two before Blaine stretches his spine straight one last time and starts in on the intro. It’s funny, Kurt thinks, how different Liszt sounds on his tinny upright compared to the wide, hollow sound of Ms. Winslow’s baby grand, but listening to the chord changes and watching the way Blaine’s square hands stretch out across the octaves is strangely the most beautiful way he’s experienced piano in a long time. It’s weird, though, at the same time, because up until now the only distinct memory he’d imbued onto this piano had been one of his mother, with her long hair and her calm soprano and her soft, buttery skin. And now he’s got this boy here, and Kurt’s not six, he’s sixteen, and he’s watching this stupid boy with his stupid curly hair and his stupid smile and his stupid suspenders stretching softly down the length of his back in a way that makes Kurt want to reach over, slide a finger underneath one, and snap just because. But he doesn’t, and he won’t.
Instead, he hears the crescendo build that signals his own intro and Blaine looks over at him with that stupid smile that shows all of his stupid teeth and Kurt is so so stupidly fucked with this, but the musical perfectionist in him remembers how this goes, regardless, the build and smash and the tired lilt in. So he poises his hands, drops his weight down, and he does.
---
They play for what feels like hours, and probably is-a start and stop motion of lazy electricity, the kind that Kurt learned to channel and direct years ago and now kind of wants to smash to the ground. It feels, for long drawn out moments, like they’re wrapping the room in thrumming staffs of energy, musical and red hot like the very tips of Kurt’s ears-and when they come down it’s a tidal wave of exhaustion. Kurt’s fingers ache from trills and quads and thirty-second note rhythms and Blaine drops from the bench the moment the last note sounds in an effort that leaves his suspender caught on the tip of the leg and Kurt watches with a hysterical fondness as he rolls over to untangle himself before spreading his arms out like a jet plane and collapsing with a happy groan.
Kurt, in that moment, wants nothing more than to lay down on top of him and recite the French dictionary of words-you-really-shouldn’t-say-in-public or count his freckles off loudly in backwards pig latin or just bite sharply at the spot where his collarbone bisects his suspender -anything to release this pent up well of wonderful and insanely hysterical energy that he’s built up.
He doesn’t, but they do end up downstairs on Kurt’s couch, well past the stage of liquefied exhaustion, watching A Streetcar Named Desire on loop. By the time they’re hearing Stanley yelling “Stellaaaaaaaaa!” for the third consecutive loop, they’re a heap-shoulders leaned together over a pile of blankets and feet propped up on opposite armrests, their chatting delirious and nonsensical. Blaine’s head keeps lolling back, half against the cushion and half against Kurt’s shoulder, and Kurt has to physically restrain his hand from reaching up to mess in Blaine’s curls that are tickling his chin because god.
“How does she even stay with a guy like that?” Blaine asks, eyes closing and words falling out of his mouth and heating the curve of Kurt’s shoulder, “he’s-he’s impossible!”
“Why does anyone stay with anyone? I mean, it’s not like seventy five percent of relationships are even smart to begin with.” And Kurt is laughing in a soft way that only slightly betrays the way his body is absolutely thrumming inside.
“You can’t answer my question with a question,” Blaine raises an arm lazily and pokes Kurt in the space under his ribs, and Kurt squirms away with a couple of laughing squawks, landing with his head scrunched awkwardly in the space between the couch and Blaine’s side, “It’s not a questionnaire.” Kurt scrambles to sit back up but mostly only succeeds in sliding the blankets around and nearly falling off the couch, so he huffs in resignation and flops back down.
“Blaine,” he says, slow and with arched brows, “that doesn’t even make sense,” because it doesn’t, at all. Kurt’s fairly certain that his brain could form more coherent comebacks in his sleep. And apparently Blaine isn’t interested in coming up with comebacks at all, because all he does is laugh, loud and infectious like he’s laughing with Kurt even though Kurt isn’t laughing at all when he starts.
But then he is, soft and spiky at the same time, his body’s jittery thrum almost completely masked over by the roll of it as his toes cramp sharply in his socks.
“Um, Kurt?” Kurt looks up, his vision upside down from his position on the couch, and sees Finn standing awkwardly against the rail at the base of the stairs, wringing his hands around in the hem of his sweater, “and uh, Kurt’s friend.” He’s scratching a hand behind his ear in a quintessential Finn gesture of nerves and of course this would happen. Of course. Kurt knows what Finn is thinking he’s just walked in on, he knows, and even the thought of it is making Kurt want to bury his head between the couch cushions and just never ever come out.
“Yes,” he says, deliberate and muffled through tightly gritted teeth.
“Yeah uh, your dad called the house phone in the kitchen,” Finn is shifting his weight from foot to foot now, looking pointedly down at the floor pattern as if studying it, “I think he wants to talk to you, or something.”
Kurt sighs, rubbing a hand across the front of his hair, and says, “I’ll call him back in a few minutes, Finn.”
The voice he uses is sleepy but kind of patronizing, and Kurt watches as Finn mutters a quick “yeah, okay,” and bounds up the stairs with a haste Kurt wasn’t sure he actually had. Once he’s gone, Kurt turns to Blaine and says “You’d probably better go,” which he doesn’t mean, and doesn’t want to say, but probably should anyway. It is a lot later-and a lot darker-than it was when they’d first made their way downstairs.
“Yeah,” Blaine says, trying fruitlessly to smooth over the creases in his pants and pat down his hair. “Let me grab my shoes, okay?” He rifles around the blankets to dig them out and then sits on the floor to lace them up his ankles. Kurt rubs at his own eyes and stretches, listening to the prim snap of his back cracking as he moves to follow Blaine up the stairs.
Part 2
Recipient: glitterdoves
Author/Artist: gingerrstar
Rating: pg-13
Word Count: 14,395
Summary: contrary to whatever beliefs mrs. gravitts and the rest of his taste-unconscious, bone breaking fellow classmates had held on the subject, all kurt could think of when it came to his childhood was brando and beethoven.
When Kurt Hummel was six days shy of ten years old, his Language Arts teacher gave him an assignment. Mrs. Gravitts was an ancient speck of a woman, as tall as she was wide and smelling like the chrysanthemums that Kurt had had decaying in a jar on his sill for months. Even considering her less-than-countable age, Kurt was fairly certain she had never smiled, at least not at him in any right. The thought made Kurt quake his heels together with nervousness and plot various ways for those horribly-floral patterned skirts she always swallowed herself in to die an undignified, fiery death. She may have been older than he could count, but some things were just not acceptable.
The assignment, as it turns out, was not the most horrible thing ever. He might let her keep one skirt after all, as long as she never again wore it in his presence. Mostly, as Kurt’s dad likes to recount, he spent the next week scouring the house for any and all misplaced sheet music-- ripped back pages, unidentified middles, pieces that Kurt already knew how to play through completely by heart. He figured that out of all the kids’ projects, his would stand out against the endless sea of pet pictures and scanned x-rays of broken bones. Because honestly, how many ways could there be to answer a prompt of ‘tell me about your childhood’?
What he forgot to really consider was that fact that Mrs. Gravitts, as usual, didn’t entirely get it. He’d glued all of the piano sheets he’d collected to a large piece of poster board, arranged in such a way that the pointed corners formed a burst at the center, cut the poster board into a large heart shape, and then used his best silver glitter to finish the edges. It had looked fabulous, exemplary-- symbolically solid A+ material. Mrs. Gravitts had called it ‘lovely but lacking’ and given him a C.
It was those hideous skirts of hers; he was sure of it.
---
Contrary to whatever beliefs Mrs. Gravitts and the rest of his taste-unconscious, bone breaking fellow classmates had held on the subject, all Kurt could think of when it came to his childhood was Brando and Beethoven.
He remembers it, in a sensory way: his mother folding him down in front of the television while she tried to sneak away to the piano in peace, only to find Kurt climbing up onto the bench beside her mere moments later as if called away by some premature intuition. His father likes to tell him the stories, Kurt buried in stacks of old black and white VHS tapes, finding him curled asleep next to his mother while she played, but Kurt remembers fine on his own. He remembers the heavy, plodding first note that echoed above the tin speech of the actors on the screen, remembers bounding around the stair landing to reach it, rolling his sweater sleeves up to feel the maternal softness of his mother’s skin against his own, pressing his fingers to hers as she played, learning, memorizing the stroke of it in his brain like a vice.
He remembers, especially, the silence-- and the way he sat in front of the piano for years after, watching it-- an ominous tower draped with a large woolen sheet as if it were a ghost. Sometimes, he likes to think it was a ghost. It was the only one he’d had.
---
The piano he sits in front of now, the one he’s sat in front of for the last four years, is decidedly unfamiliar and yet hauntingly familiar at the same time. It’s uncovered, for one, large and gleaming black, and its keys slide tantalizing along his fingers like refrigerated butter. Kurt’s dad hasn’t thought to dust the upright in years, but this one is so clean that Kurt can preen to his reflection in the propped open back cover, much to Ms. Winslow’s constantly feigned irritation.
“Kurt, sweetheart, the piano isn’t a suitor-- sit back down.” She’s probably not even looking at him, doesn’t have to, which he thinks is mildly hilarious by now. He sits anyway, sliding to the perfect center of the bench, his back ramrod straight. His right cheek may have a slightly unsightly flush, and his hair may be a bit limper than it was when he sprayed it this morning, but he can be the perfect pupil. Perfect-- something.
Ms. Winslow clenches and un-clenches her fingers next to him, flipping through her ‘important notebook of important papers,’ and Kurt watches her glasses slide down the bridge of her nose, her wedding band roll around the thin band of her fourth finger.
“I have an idea I want you to consider, Kurt,” she says, and Kurt is just sitting there plunking a low-register G as she speaks, his other hand folded neatly in his lap. “There’s this boy, another of my students--” Kurt is almost suspicious for a second, really, and he goes so far as to still his moving finger over the key, “I’d like you to play a duet with him.”
The air goes steadily out of Kurt’s lungs like a sigh, and really, maybe it is-- even in spite of the fact that the thought of playing with someone else makes his head spin. How is he supposed to place himself, to sit-- how is he supposed to find his own unique “voice” if he’s too preoccupied trying to deal with someone else’s? “Ms. Winslow, um-- I’m really not sure this is...” he tries, “I just, you know I might be busy with like, my dad and--” Ms. Winslow continues to regard him with a raised eyebrow, unimpressed with his, admittedly, meager attempts at weaseling out of a situation that is about as harmless as being hit with a pound of pillows.
“I just want opportunities for you, Kurt, honey,” she places her worn hand against the skin of his arm and it feels slick with age, cool and comforting, “you’ll never grow if you don’t--”
Kurt relinquishes, eyes closing, with a heavy breath of “I’ll do it,” and hey, it can’t logically be any worse than spending every second lunch washing blue slushie from his scalp, really, “I’ll do it.”
Ms. Winslow smiles at him, then, like she knows something, or maybe just like she’s pleased with his sudden ability to acquiesce to her desires without the huff of routine complaint he usually sidles her with. And okay, yeah-- he knows he can be a bit of a high maintenance pain-in-the-ass a lot of the time, but seriously-- it’s not like his experiences with duets have gone over very-- well, to put it lightly. He has reasons.
As he packs up for the night-- music in his folder case, phone in his coat pocket, hairspray in the side compartment of his saddle bag-- he listens to Ms. Winslow faintly clicking her pen in and out as she scratches a set of notes down. Just as he’s hitching his bags up onto the bone of his shoulder and about to leave, she pauses him with a, “Kurt, honey-- wait,” and when he turns back to her, she’s holding out a receipt with a faint scrawl across the back. He takes it silently with a gloved hand. “The boy’s number,” she explains, and oh, well, that makes sense of the Blaine Anderson notated across the top with a couple sets of numbers beneath, “I’ll probably forget to give it to you next week, so-- in case.”
Kurt pockets it, the paper crinkling slightly under his fingers, and turns for the door. “Next week,” he says, waggling his fingers in a small, quaint wave, retrieving his forgotten cup of takeout coffee from the lid of the piano as he goes.
On his way down the front corridor, he listens to the satisfying sound of his heels clicking across the solid block tile, one after the other in some sort of strange cadence. It maybe sounds like the vague rhythm of that dance jam Mercedes had made him listen to in the car the other day, and he thinks that Finn would probably say it sounded a lot like the snapped triplet of a drum beat or something. Mostly, to Kurt’s refined taste, it sounds like the smooth chunk of polished heel and delicious patent leather, like the three crisp hundred dollar bills he handed over to the saleslady to purchase them last month. Ah, sound of victory.
He’s smirking to himself, like a secret, strutting down the long expanse of hallway and tugging the lid off of his lukewarm cappuccino when oh. The boy walking towards him isn’t aware of his presence, or well, at least he isn’t actively so-thank god-- but oh is he lovely. Kurt is fairly certain he’s died and gone to like, some really fucked up form of teen gay heaven where boys look like that and he isn’t even dreaming. The boy is short but not small, really, with thin wrists and strong, square hands that grip around the bundle of sheet music he’s carrying. Kurt feels his feet falter and his eyes follow the boy’s movements up and down, appraising his outfit for good measure and oh, does he approve. Cream and black striped top, wine red cardigan that’s buttoned to halfway up his chest, grey pants that cling-good gaga-in all the right places, and yum.
The boy keeps walking, nearly passed him, and Kurt is suddenly very grateful that the boy is heartily absorbed in the screen of his phone, because he can feel his face heating up and his ears are likely flushing seven shades of unattractive scarlet and just ugh. Kurt can’t keep his eyes from straying over, even as the boy continues away and he spends so much time between the picture window and the front door cataloging the darkly curled coif of the boy’s hair, the attractive downward slope of his nose, that he’s walking to his car before he realizes his hand has somehow tilted awkwardly and he’s spilled offending pumpkin cappuccino all over the top of his mint-condition designer boots. He wants to die, and scream, but mostly he wants to get to the point in his young life where he stops being the fumbling virgin of all virgins who ruins perfectly perfect footwear at the mere sight of a cute guy and starts being a little less ridiculous.
---
“God, I’m so so sorry I’m late,” he’s ridiculously out of breath from running all the way from his car to the back rehearsal room-and in three inch heels no less-but as the door swings open and he looks over at the piano, it’s definitely not Ms. Winslow who awaits him. “Um, hi?” is all he can think to say as he lets his feet rest, reaching back to click the door shut. The intruding stranger turns around at the sound of his voice and-- oh shit, oh shit, oh shit-- fate is obviously fucking with him big time this week, he’s sure of it; this has to be some form of a sick-though very attractive, his brain unhelpfully supplies-joke. Kurt feels like his feet are weighted to the floor as the boy smiles at him, large and toothy, rubbing a hand lightly against the side of his hair that looks some version of mind numbingly curly and perfectly styled at the same time and all he can manage himself is to stand there dazedly, his hands gripping awkwardly at his bag straps, cheeks going blotchy with heat.
“Hey,” the boy says, easy and offhand, and Kurt can only imagine the time that passes while he’s stuck there looking dumbfounded, absently memorizing the curl of the boys fingers over the charcoal corduroy of his pants, the cut of his twisted shoulders in some navy checked dress shirt that cuffs neatly at just above his elbow.
“Oh! Kurt, honey-” Ms. Winslow walks in just as he’s thanking some deity for the luck that he was running too late to bring coffee today, clicking the kitchen door shut softly behind her, “Kurt, this is the boy I was telling you about,” she then turns to address the boy, still seated spine straight, watching the scene play out with calm interest, “Blaine, this is Kurt.”
Blaine reaches out his hand, square and pale, and Kurt is propelled forward by the force of Ms. Winslow’s voice until he’s standing suddenly close to Blaine and shaking his hand lightly. “Blaine,” he says, “Anderson.” He has a strong grip, Kurt notes, but not intimidating, and even though Kurt is sure his own hand is seven kinds of dewy, his grip shaking and soft, Blaine smiles softly the whole way through.
“Kurt Hummel,” he offers in return, calming his own breathing with a quick ferocity, and okay, okay he can be unaffected, yes. He’s cool, totally fucking cool even-the master. So cool that when Blaine shifts over on the bench to make room for him to sit, he doesn’t shiver at the scent of him or hyperventilate at the way their thighs touch, he just sits down and crosses his legs neatly at the knee-amazingly cool. Ms. Winslow sits in her usual chair and Kurt focuses on her with a prim smile.
“Now, boys-duet, let’s talk about it,” she opens her book of notes and schedules and Kurt grips and un-grips his fingers against his knee, “I have to leave in about ten minutes, but we weren’t really going to do too much today, so that’s no matter-what I need to make sure today is just that you boys are both still up for doing this.” Kurt considers hesitating, backing out, even though he knows Ms. Winslow would be disappointed in him exponentially, because even more than that he knows his luck with duets, most importantly his luck with duets with boys this attractive. But he looks up and Blaine is looking at him with that smile, and he’s just told Ms. Winslow “Yes, of course!” and Kurt just-he just can’t say no to that kind of creative enthusiasm, so he nods his own affirmation softly. Ms. Winslow turns the corner of her lip up in appreciation and begins detailing them the schedule run down. Kurt looks hotly down at his own lap. He is so fucked.
It’s funny, really-that that’s all he can think of as Ms. Winslow briefs them, gushes over the potentially explosive combination of their talents-to which Kurt reacts by preening his bangs haughtily, if there is one thing he does have, praise gaga, it’s talent-and ushers them lightly out the door as she moves to leave. Blaine is, for lack of a better word, collected, with his easy smiles and calm hands and god, if his piano playing sounds half as good as his eyelashes look, then Kurt is fucked all the way to next year, easily.
They walk in quiet tandem through the hallway and out into the yard, Kurt clutching the strap of his satchel like a lifeline even though Blaine is probably the least threatening person he’s ever met ever, and he feels kind of exponentially ridiculous about it. Blaine stops him just before he reaches the door of his navigator with a hand on his shoulder and Kurt can feel the imaginary spark of his fingertips all the way down through the bone, even after Blaine’s hand is back at his side. When Kurt turns around and looks up, Blaine is holding out his cell phone like a peace offering, and, um.
“I thought we could exchange,” he explains, his other hand loping slightly in front of his chest as he speaks, “numbers that is.” Kurt takes the phone in his hand and is pleased to find it already open to a fresh contact entry. He types the numbers in carefully under Blaine’s soft gaze and then hands the phone back to him, trying not to think about the way their fingers brush.
“I, uh, I already have yours,” he says, in response to Blaine’s outstretched hand, and wow, okay that sounds kind of creepy, “Ms. Winslow gave me…”
“Ah, yes, of course,” Kurt sighs out his relief. If Blaine is creeped out, he certainly can’t tell. “Next week then.”
“Tuesday,” Kurt says, raising his hand in a small saluting wave of sorts that he is probably going to heinously regret later. Blaine laughs quietly under his breath.
“Take care, Kurt,” he says, and Kurt repeats it lightly as he watches Blaine turn and walk away to his car, making a point not to pay attention to the way that Blaine’s shirt-cuff boxes nicely on his arm that’s wrapped around a stack of music notebooks and failing rather unsurprisingly.
So fucked.
---
Kurt is sitting in glee rehearsal when his phone pings from inside his coat pocket. Mr. Schuester is giving some sort of lecture, scribbling formations on the white board across the room that Kurt is pretty sure have something to do with their group number for Regionals, but he zoned out a bit ago, more concerned with picking absently at his cuticles and imagining the ways he can massacre Mr. Schuester’s awful vest without his knowledge than paying attention. He pulls his phone out, nonchalant, and balances it on his stacked thighs, clicking the home screen open to an unknown number.
testing, testing? the first text reads, then the next, hey kurt, this is blaine.
Kurt’s stomach flops over a bit inside his sweater, and his fingers hesitate over the keys for a second before typing out a quick hey and proceeding to turn his phone over and over in his palm. His cuticles, still perfect, are seeming suddenly a very welcome distraction, and he picks listlessly at them again for a few minutes before his phone buzzes again in his hand.
any opinions on sheet music? duets? Kurt begins a reply-he has a lot of opinions, really-but before he can finish another text comes through. compiling stuff for recital, just wanted to make sure you got a say. :) and oh god, Kurt is fairly sure his expression is bordering on dopey, his body thrumming in his seat, because, objectively speaking, it’s probably the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to him, and isn’t that just sad. If someone just considering his opinions impresses him this much, he really needs to get out more.
Mr. Schue is coughing then, loud and interrupting Kurt from his bubble of thought with a sharp call of “Kurt?” Kurt scrambles at mention of his name, pocketing his phone and rocking forward in his seat, alert and poised with his hands clasped on his crossed knees.
“Yes, yes,” he stammers out, lisp getting the best of him as his heart jitters in his chest, “I’m here, yes.”
“Kurt, formations-partners,” Mr. Schue instructs, waving his hands to illustrate and Kurt looks down at most of the rest of the kids in their places on the floor, Rachel poised at the boom box with a hand placed irritatingly on her hip. Kurt begrudgingly gets up, his face hot, and steps down the risers to the direction of Brittany and Quinn. “Boys, Kurt.” Like clockwork. Of course. Yes.
He turns to stand next to Finn by the piano and Mercedes moves past him to stand with the rest of the girls, side-eyeing him with a strange curiosity. He’s not surprised; he’s fairly certain his level of giddiness is resulting in some form of visible glitter. Once they begin the steps, though, and he gets to the point in the dance where they partner up, Mercedes swoops in on him like a hawk. Thankfully they’re in the back of the formation, so the hard eyes she’s making at him go unnoticed. He’s sure that if Mr. Schuester calls him out again in class he’s going to fall into a puddle and die, regardless of Kurt’s feelings on the repetitive nature of his lesson plans.
“So who’s the secret loverboy?” She’s whispering at him as they move, but it’s got to be the least deceptive whisper he’s ever heard. The chord changes and he spins her around-oh god, is he that obvious? Not good.
“No one,” he can tell she doesn’t believe him, she never does, but he turns his nose up sharply during another spin.
“You’re pretty spun up for no one, white boy,” she smirks lightly at him, like she knows all of his secrets, and truth be told she probably does. He waits a beat, but she doesn’t continue speaking, just lets him finish leading the dance, back and forth, side, spin. His phone is heavy in the pocket of his jeans, burning electric and not doing anything to ail the obstinate patter of his heart inside his chest. And this is ridiculous, really, the fact that he’s getting so overworked at just the idea of it combined with the idea of Blaine, who Kurt should really, really not be thinking about. He knows how that ends, and it’s not well.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mercedes,” he diverts, as the number ends with the bell and he’s reaching to grab his bag, placing it on his shoulder sharply and turning on his heel to the door.
---
Kurt is splayed across the floor at Ms. Winslow’s the following week, boots propped up on two throw pillows and French textbook between his thighs, when Blaine walks in carrying what is probably the largest stack of sheet books that Kurt has ever seen in his life. The door knocks against the sole of Kurt’s boot as it opens, and Blaine drops the stack of books unceremoniously onto a chair against the wall, greeting Kurt with a quick “Hey,” before plopping down on the carpet with exhaustion.
Kurt looks over to see his eyes closed, eyelashes fanned over his cheeks, and appraises him quietly in the light of Ms. Winslow’s stained glass lamp. His outfit is decidedly simple, and Kurt really shouldn’t like it but it’s sort of perfect-he’s got on some sweater with a prep school logo, but it’s navy and oversized, which is a plus, and his jeans are black and thin, tucked into the same short dress boots. Kurt finds it all mildly endearing, and he chuckles as he closes his French textbook and slides it back into his bag. When he looks back, Blaine’s still sprawled out and he’s thrown his arms over his eyes in a ridiculous gesture. Kurt laughs, even though his cheeks and ears and the insides of his elbows are flushing at the sharp cut of Blaine’s jaw, the curl of hair over his ear. “So, you planning on us building a paper powered missile tonight with these, or--?”
Blaine props himself up on his hands and smiles, reaching over to grab stacks off the pile while he says, “Practically,” setting them in the large open ‘v’ of Kurt’s legs, “actually, I just didn’t know what to bring. I wasn’t sure what you liked cause you never texted me back.” And oh shit, he didn’t, did he? Kurt touches a hand to his own cheek reflexively and it feels even hotter. “So I just brought everything.” And Blaine is so jovial with him, smiling and unfazed by what Kurt would’ve fretted over as some intrinsic form of rejection for days. He keeps placing books in front of Kurt and when he finishes he sets himself down Indian style, hands calmly placed on his thighs. “Well,” he says, “c’mon, pick away.”
And they do, or rather, Kurt does, mostly. Blaine sits cross-legged next to his thigh with his stupid jeans and his stupid hair and his stupid ridiculous eyelashes, reaching over to point out bridges or accompaniments that he likes in particular while Kurt flips through book after book after book. And Kurt is not freaking out about the fact that Blaine’s sweater is brushing over the skin of his forearm repeatedly or the fact that Blaine occasionally decides to snatch the book from Kurt’s hands and demonstrate a particular piece on the piano. Kurt was so right about his piano playing too, it’s ridiculously, insufferably gorgeous. His hands are poised so neatly, his spine straight and stacked and strong and even though all Kurt wants to do is watch the muscles in his shoulders move with the chord changes, he has to close his eyes and let the notes wrap around him like shining silver wire.
At one point, Blaine starts to play and Kurt is tired, so tired that he almost doesn’t recognize the pattern of the notes at first, small and leaning against the frame of a bookcase. But then the bridge connect picks up and suddenly it’s like he’s not yet nine, standing in his parents’ kitchen by himself while the faint hum of a radio plays from where his mother’s bed is set up in the den. He can remember it so clearly, the lilt of the notes and how they grew in volume as he walked towards her bed, how he would bend his head over her and kiss her cheeks and then her hands, tapping his small fingers against her wrists to the beat of the song as if it would pump the music straight into her veins. Music couldn’t die, it wouldn’t ever leave-he remembers believing that it would be enough. Funny how things work out, he guesses with a bitterness he had forgotten he’d had, all these years later.
He’s so absorbed in his own memory that he barely registers Ms. Winslow leaning softly against the door frame, and he’s not entirely sure how long she’s been standing there, to be honest, but her smile is warm and pleasing, soft like a mother’s. The more that he thinks about it, really, in some ways, she kind of is one.
“Would you boys like some tea?” she asks, and Blaine’s fingers still on the keys, before rubbing once down the line of his thighs and settling in his lap, nodding his affirmation, and Kurt adds a soft, “please.” As Ms. Winslow walks back into the kitchen, her heels clicking lightly, Kurt watches Blaine with a kind of quiet solidity-this boy who is so collected, so defined and realized around the edges in a way that Kurt wishes he were-and yet Kurt recalls the easy sound of his laughter, the fan of his eyelashes as he smiles with more than his own share of teeth. And Kurt doesn’t know what to make of him really-and he’s stopped trying, to be honest-but he knows that he wants in this really fierce and sharp way, like tiny pinpricks underneath his skin that all tell him to stay close.
When Kurt looks over again, Blaine is running his fingers absently over the keys, as if wiping away dust that Kurt knows isn’t ever there. “The cups aren’t really fragile,” Ms. Winslow says as she re-enters, a teetering cup in each hand. Kurt takes his when it’s proffered to him, crossing his knees as he settles against the bookcase, and Blaine steps up to grab his own before she can reach him, sitting back down on the piano bench, but facing Kurt this time, and Kurt can see the slight burn of red on the pads of his fingers as he raises the cup to his mouth.
Kurt watches as Blaine takes a sip and then pulls it back again to blow on the rim, looking up at Kurt from beneath his eyelashes, and Kurt moves to take another sip, casting his eyes down, suddenly very interested in the carpet, his hands, the way the tea sloshes against the rim of his cup as he breathes in and out. In. Out.
In, out.
---
Kurt is really trying to focus on this geometry test, he really is.
He could’ve sworn he’d studied, has written notes down every morning and made flash cards and formula charts and he can tell a rhombus from a kite but suddenly he can’t. It’s not like math is his favorite subject at William McKinley, nor is it truly the one he’s best at, but he’s a solid A student if he studies, which he does-- until now apparently.
The test just keeps staring back at him, question after question, triangle after triangle and when he goes to fill it in all he can think of are quarter notes and half rests and chord changes and really, this is getting ridiculous. He knows that Mr. Georges likes him well enough, mostly because Kurt turns his homework in on time and it’s actually legible, but even he probably wouldn’t be too entirely pleased if Kurt were to answer all of these equations with like, detailed staff notation or insipid poetry about the unfailing attraction he has to Blaine’s strong fingers, his curved out bottom lip.
Even less impressive would be a play by play of last week’s rehearsal, he’s sure-he and Blaine sandwiched together on the piano bench, their thighs and knees and elbows touching and Ms. Winslow flitting in and out as they played through a few of the books they’d narrowed down to. Kurt can still recall the surprising softness of Blaine’s skin against his own wrist as they moved up and down octaves, Blaine’s hands jumping back and forth like children determined to win at double dutch, as Kurt’s own thin fingers worked quickly through the trilling melody.
He looks back down, expecting that maybe he’s magically figured it out somehow, but the equations stay blank in front of him, mocking him. He wants to laugh at his own utter ridiculousness, almost, but he figures that Mr. Georges wouldn’t be too fond of him for it, so he resorts to staring at the paper, willing it to answer itself.
Ten unproductive minutes later he folds his arms neatly on the desk, plops his forehead into them, and sighs.
---
“How do you even breathe in there?” Kurt is utterly perplexed, honestly, at the idea that someone could be so jovial at the idea of living in what is essentially a storage closet, and with another teenage boy no less, “Like, sometimes even the basement feels too small to contain me, I don’t know how you do it Blaine, really.” Blaine is laughing at him, low and amused, and Kurt kind of wants to smack him a bit, because his opinions are valid, damn it. He swats dismissively at the screen instead, but it only serves to make Blaine laugh harder. Kurt frowns.
“I’ll have you know-”
“Your opinions are extremely valid,” Blaine interrupts, “the most valid I’ve ever heard.” He’s deadpan when he says it and god, Blaine is mocking him, he’s mocking him-- and Kurt is torn between wanting to curl up in a ball and wanting to raise his left eyebrow with perfectly practiced precision until Blaine gives in and admits his defeat. He settles instead for blushing all the way to the very tips of his ears, nose pink and freckles burning hot marks into his cheeks.
“I’m just saying,” Kurt rests his cheeks on his hands to prevent them from being revealed to the camera, at least until they cool down, “personal space is kind of important, Blaine.”
Blaine just gives him this look of nonchalance-totally super fucking chill-and lowers his pencil to erase another line from his work, but not before turning Kurt with a flippant, “well, maybe I don’t like personal space,” mouth blooming a smirk as he downcasts his eyes. And it takes a moment to register in Kurt’s mind, really. He’s too busy staring at the spot where Blaine’s eyes were and listening to the soft squeak of eraser on paper, but when it does-oh, oh.
And now Kurt is undeniably thinking about Blaine, with his stupid voice and his stupid hands and his stupid dislike of personal space and just. He can only imagine the horribly horribly awkward situations that this is going to induce-good gaga. His nervous system just can’t catch a break.
“You don’t need to carry over the exponent if the equation is based around a quadrilateral, correct?” Blaine asks, nipping lightly at his pencil with the whites of his teeth. Kurt’s not even sure he remembers the first thing about the laws of exponents, let alone specifics.
“You do realize you’re asking this of the boy who spent his entire last math exam thinking about sheet music, right?” Blaine chuckles fondly at him. “I’m fairly certain that any algebra help I could give to you would be, well, unhelpful, to put it lightly.” And great, fabulous, he just admitted his utter ineptness in all things mathematics-no matter what his letter grade says-to a boy who is spending their late night Thursday skype session studying. He is getting seriously worse at this, really.
Blaine just pushes his algebra book to the side and folds his hands in front of him with a soft smile. “Let’s talk about that, then,” he says, and Kurt is momentarily taken aback.
“About my inability to focus on algebraic concept?” Kurt quirks a confused eyebrow. This is not about to become an academic counseling session.
“No, no-music,” Kurt lets his eyebrow down with visible relief, leaning forward in interest and Blaine smiles with all of his teeth. “I mean we both like it, clearly-” Kurt, surprisingly, looks away from Blaine long enough that he notices a figure walking around in the background, and he really, probably, shouldn’t ask-especially considering that he’s in a state of permanent flush and the front of his hair is terribly, terribly messy, but.
“Who’s that?” he asks, attempting to smooth his bang into submission as quickly and as surreptitiously as possible with a wet palm. Blaine turns around to check, then beckons the figure over with a wave of his hand, but all Kurt notices is the way Blaine twists around the frame of the chair, the definition of his arm strong and solid and distracting even in the horridly washed out light of the computer monitor.
“Roommate,” Blaine confirms, except then a t-shirt clad chest is filling half of Kurt’s computer screen and Blaine is looking up with a small “hey,” and oh, wow, he has a nice jaw. It notches slightly just below his ear, continuing down to his chin in a straight, sharp line and Kurt feels a buzzing sensation start in his gut again at the realization. The chest moves down, then, and Blaine’s roommate waves a friendly ‘hey’. Kurt smiles his best smile with none of his teeth and waves back with similar sentiment.
Blaine still as his head turned up towards the guy when he stands back up and the guy says “he your boyfriend?” in a voice clearly not meant for webcam microphone and just--what. He wasn’t even supposed to hear it, isn’t even sure if he actually did, and Kurt’s head is spinning so fast that he completely misses whatever it is Blaine says back to the guy before the guy’s gone, patting Blaine on the shoulder in exit, and Blaine’s turned back to face the camera.
“Carey’s tall,” Blaine says, and that’s somehow the most pitiful explanation of a person Kurt’s ever heard and yet it’s honestly all he pictures, blushing despite himself.
Blaine sips from a mug emblazoned with music notes, then, Kurt watching through the screen as Blaine explains its contents-white tea, a spoon of honey, lemon juice, ginger root-all apparently heaven for the throat, and Blaine promises to bring him some for next rehearsal. Kurt nods his assent with a shy smile and pointedly doesn’t say that actually, his favorite tea is peppermint, two sugars, and he can’t stand the burn of ginger root, or honey, or lemon.
---
Baking sugar cookies with Mercedes that weekend is a mess, but worth it. Her mom leaves them a cupboard full of supplies, and the note she tacked up tells them to make six batches. They make twelve.
By the end of the night they’re both covered in confectionery flour and rolling with laughter against the back of the couch. They’ve gathered all of Mercedes’ family’s blankets together in a heap and Kurt is burying his feet inside the pocket of one that he’s pretty sure depicts a faded version of Ariel the mermaid, laptop nestled warmly on a stack of pillows in front of him. Behind him, Mercedes is rifling through a bin of nail polish, noisily debating each shade with herself.
“Is that Ariel?” Blaine asks, as Kurt pulls at the top of the blanket and a slice of her red hair comes into view on the screen. Kurt immediately feels his cheeks fill with heat, toes curling loosely from inside his striped slipper socks at the sound of Blaine’s cheerful laugh.
“Uh, no?” Kurt knows he’s trying to play it off, that Blaine probably knows that, but god, it’s bad enough that he’s the very definition of a giddy schoolgirl every time they talk-he doesn’t need Blaine to think he’s a princess to top it all off. Honestly. Blaine clears his throat with a soft cough and palms a hand through the fluff of curls at the front of his head.
“So, I won’t take up too much of your bonding time,” he says, threading his fingers together and snapping them, “but I’m glad I caught you, cause-”
“Who’re you skyping over there, boo?” Mercedes interrupts, and when Kurt twists around she’s painting her toenails a sickening shade of cotton candy pink.
“Just Blaine,” he turns back dismissively and gestures at Blaine to continue, but upon notice, Blaine is busy adjusting his camera and peering through the screen at them with a sort of amused interest. In hindsight, really, he probably should’ve lied-said Finn or his aunt, or god, even Rachel-because the moment she hears the name, Mercedes caps her polish and scrambles over to where Kurt sits with an eternally embarrassing squeal of “ooh, boy, lemme see, lemme see!” She makes grabby hands at the computer, and oh god, it’s officially official-Kurt wants to die. He holds out as long as possible with his body shielding the computer screen from view, but Mercedes eventually catches him around the waist and he squawks away just enough for her to plop down next to him in front of the screen.
“Well hello, Mercedes,” Blaine greets, and even though Kurt is busy looking at his sleeves to avoid this whole situation, he knows from the tone of his voice that he’s smiling that smile that curves up, the one with all of his teeth. Mercedes is bound to be butter already.
She smacks Kurt on the thigh instead and says, “Ooh, he’s cute and polite,” Kurt is dying, dead. Dead, dead, dead. “I approve.” And then Blaine is laughing, smooth and musical, in sharp bursts that send a splotchy sort of electric heat through Kurt’s body like a live wire. Kurt bats softly at Mercedes without looking up from his knees and she giggles through it for a few minutes before Kurt resorts to flopping over onto her, his foolproof . After thirty seconds, she declares ultimate defeat and squirms over to her makeshift nail station, laughing all the way.
When Kurt looks back at Blaine he’s still laughing, smile just as Kurt had imagined and all Kurt can do without throwing up or pounding his heart straight out of his ribcage is lower his eyelashes and chuckle back. “So, so sorry about that,” he says, hot cheeks in his clammy hands, “She’s insufferable.” Mercedes makes a tut sound with her tongue from behind him and Blaine only laughs dismissively, shaking his head.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he says, and takes a small swig from a water bottle, “no, but what I got on to tell you was that I can’t make practice next week-emergency warblers practice.”
“Warblers?” Blaine takes another drink and holds a finger up to motion for a second.
“Glee Club,” he explains, after having swallowed. “So close to the spring finale-we’re pretty much on call 24/7.” Kurt watches his eyes roll slightly, though not in annoyance, and yes, yes-he gets it.
“That is something I understand all too well,” he says instead, momentarily exasperated at memories of Rachel Berry’s infamous last minute cattle call dance rehearsals before sectionals last year, “totally excusable, no worries.” Kurt pulls his knees up against his chest and smiles lightly.
“Well, I would suggest making it up on Wednesday but Ms. Winslow told me she has that night booked full, so-” Kurt can see him trying to figure it out, the solution, “I’d feel bad about missing a whole week.” He scratches against the side of his head in a gesture that Kurt would do to mean ‘nervous’ or ‘bashful’, but on Blaine just looks like ‘adorable’ and ‘probably tired.’
“We could use my house,” he blurts, even before he can think about it, or why for that matter, but it’s out there, “actually, that’s kind of a terrible idea-” he’s essentially backtracking, nervous at the thought of actual real-life Blaine in his actual real-life house, “don’t you live like two hours away?”
“No, no-it’s fine, Kurt. It’s great.” Kurt feels ridiculous, but Blaine is jovial and sweet and seven thousand other adjectives that Kurt is rightfully but unfairly saddling him with right now, “I’ll be there, what day?”
“Saturday?” Kurt suggests, “that way we’ll have time to actually, y’know-practice,” he scratches absently at a nonexistent piece of lint on his blanket covered knee as he speaks, “plus my dad will be at some fishing meeting-thing, so like, he won’t get annoyed or whatever.” More nonexistent lint pretends to appear and he continues to pick at it with the tip of his pointer finger.
“Sounds great, Kurt,” Kurt can’t look at him, he can’t-his cheeks are shot to all hell without a doubt, but Blaine’s voice is full of smile, “I can see Mercedes back there making faces, so I won’t keep you, but text me your address later so I can GPS some directions, okay?” He chuckles softly and throws his hand up in a wave, “goodnight, Kurt.” Kurt thinks that he hears himself respond with a similar admonition, but it’s like he’s separate from his brain and all he can think is-oh god, his eyes, and shit, Saturday as Blaine reaches close to the screen to click a button and the screen goes dark.
When he turns around, Mercedes is looking at him with an expression that lets him know that she knows, and okay, yes-he’s done for.
“What?” he snaps, quick and sharp, hands raised in an accusatory gesture. Mercedes just laughs like she’s laughing at him and not with him, and shakes her head.
“I didn’t say anything,” she raises her hands up in innocence and pads over to the kitchen in her zebra print pajamas, “not a thing.”
---
When his alarm goes obnoxiously off at 5:30 on a Saturday morning, Kurt figures his dad will barge in any second to sleepily demand ‘why on god’s earth’ he’s awake at such an unsightly hour. He even prepares for it, sitting Indian style on his bed with unthreateningly mussed hair and wrinkled pajamas, and pointedly not hopping right in the shower where he can successfully avoid his father for the better part of an hour. Fortunately, any questioning doesn’t happen until just after lunch, when Kurt grabs the travel bucket of cleaning supplies from under the sink and walks into the den.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, son-” Burt holds up a hand and halts him in his tracks and Kurt turns around, leaning softly against a door frame, “just where do you think you’re going with those?”
“Cleaning the piano-?” Kurt wiggles the bucket up by the side of his face, and walks back to the piano and pulls the cover off. Burt’s followed him in, now leaning against the wall with his hip and Kurt figures he should probably, well, explain, “Blaine’s coming over in a bit to practice for the recital.” He turns back to his father and he’s looking at him like Kurt somehow grew five heads in the past minute, “I told you on Thursday, dad.”
“This boy, Blaine, he’s from your glee club or something?” Kurt swipes at the keys with a damp cloth and they made dissonant non-chords into the empty air.
“No, dad,” Kurt flips an errant bang out of his face with a clean wrist, then passes the cloth over the lid, the front, the seat, “he’s a student of Ms. Winslow’s. She wants us to do a duet together and yes, I know my history of duets is-well, not the best, but she asked, like, four times, and I know I can be a bitch but there are some things I just can’t do-and one of them is saying no to a sweet old lady.”
Burt wants to laugh, or maybe chastise his son a bit for the pointless use of swear words in pleasant conversation again, but he figures, in the grand scheme of things, his son’s manners could be much worse.
“Now, Blaine is gonna be here in an hour or so, so I have to go get presentable,” Kurt picks up his bucket again to return it to the kitchen, “and I don’t know about you, but if it were my first client meeting, I’d want to be quite a bit early, just saying.” He walks into the kitchen, then, boots padding noiselessly across the carpet, and well, Burt guesses, that’s the end of that conversation.
---
Kurt hears a knock on the front door around 1:30, and his heart is hammering in his chest. He’s been sitting on the couch for the better part of twenty minutes, hair sprayed into a perfect coif and desperately willing his fidgety hands to stop picking at the threads of his jeans like some crazed asylum patient. When he gets up to open it, Blaine greets him on the other side with a warm smile and a soft “hey,” but all Kurt can do is stare dazedly and think oh.
He’s got on those pants again, the ones that cling just so, except Kurt is mostly taken with the fact that not only is he wearing a short sleeved, polka-dotted t-shirt, but he’s wearing actual, honest to god suspenders, and wow-wow, okay. They’re barely noticeable, just a dark, dark burgundy against the deep navy of his shirt, and Kurt’s known he liked clothes since, well-since he can remember, really-but he’s fairly certain he never had a clothes fetish until now. And wow, okay-that was sort of awkward and creepy, if he thinks about it, which he’s really trying not to.
“Um, Kurt?” Blaine is just standing there on his front step, shifting his weight from foot to foot, and Kurt’s been watching this whole time, but didn’t even notice, “Are you gonna let me in?”
“Oh, yes, right-yeah, yeah,” Kurt startles, blinking his eyes open and shut and moving over to motion Blaine in with a delicate hand, “Come on, this way.” He ushers Blaine through the front room with quiet direction and then when they reach the den says “I know it’s not as fancy or new as Ms. Winslow’s, but I cleaned it this morning so it should be okay.”
Blaine is just pulling their sheet music out of his shoulder bag and placing it on the sheet tray, clucking his tongue with a laugh of, “It’s great, Kurt,” sitting down on the bench and crossing his ankles together, “thanks again for this, by the way.” Kurt smiles lightly and he’s really starting to think that he should invest in some freaky, reptilian surgery to make him, like, cold blooded or something, because this blushing thing is just becoming ridiculous.
He moves to sit down on the bench next to Blaine, careful to keep at least a few inches of space between their thighs, because he knows his own limitations, and he watches as Blaine twists his hands together and cracks the knuckles of each finger in what sounds like some kind of rhythm. The thought that Blaine snaps his knuckles to a timed pattern is both endearing and kind of hilarious, if he’s being honest, and he finds himself laughing softly under his breath as Blaine spreads their sheets out across the tray and sets in.
“You just wanna do run-throughs?” Blaine asks, and Kurt is kind of listening and mostly staring at his eyelashes, so he nods dumbly for a second or two before Blaine stretches his spine straight one last time and starts in on the intro. It’s funny, Kurt thinks, how different Liszt sounds on his tinny upright compared to the wide, hollow sound of Ms. Winslow’s baby grand, but listening to the chord changes and watching the way Blaine’s square hands stretch out across the octaves is strangely the most beautiful way he’s experienced piano in a long time. It’s weird, though, at the same time, because up until now the only distinct memory he’d imbued onto this piano had been one of his mother, with her long hair and her calm soprano and her soft, buttery skin. And now he’s got this boy here, and Kurt’s not six, he’s sixteen, and he’s watching this stupid boy with his stupid curly hair and his stupid smile and his stupid suspenders stretching softly down the length of his back in a way that makes Kurt want to reach over, slide a finger underneath one, and snap just because. But he doesn’t, and he won’t.
Instead, he hears the crescendo build that signals his own intro and Blaine looks over at him with that stupid smile that shows all of his stupid teeth and Kurt is so so stupidly fucked with this, but the musical perfectionist in him remembers how this goes, regardless, the build and smash and the tired lilt in. So he poises his hands, drops his weight down, and he does.
---
They play for what feels like hours, and probably is-a start and stop motion of lazy electricity, the kind that Kurt learned to channel and direct years ago and now kind of wants to smash to the ground. It feels, for long drawn out moments, like they’re wrapping the room in thrumming staffs of energy, musical and red hot like the very tips of Kurt’s ears-and when they come down it’s a tidal wave of exhaustion. Kurt’s fingers ache from trills and quads and thirty-second note rhythms and Blaine drops from the bench the moment the last note sounds in an effort that leaves his suspender caught on the tip of the leg and Kurt watches with a hysterical fondness as he rolls over to untangle himself before spreading his arms out like a jet plane and collapsing with a happy groan.
Kurt, in that moment, wants nothing more than to lay down on top of him and recite the French dictionary of words-you-really-shouldn’t-say-in-public or count his freckles off loudly in backwards pig latin or just bite sharply at the spot where his collarbone bisects his suspender -anything to release this pent up well of wonderful and insanely hysterical energy that he’s built up.
He doesn’t, but they do end up downstairs on Kurt’s couch, well past the stage of liquefied exhaustion, watching A Streetcar Named Desire on loop. By the time they’re hearing Stanley yelling “Stellaaaaaaaaa!” for the third consecutive loop, they’re a heap-shoulders leaned together over a pile of blankets and feet propped up on opposite armrests, their chatting delirious and nonsensical. Blaine’s head keeps lolling back, half against the cushion and half against Kurt’s shoulder, and Kurt has to physically restrain his hand from reaching up to mess in Blaine’s curls that are tickling his chin because god.
“How does she even stay with a guy like that?” Blaine asks, eyes closing and words falling out of his mouth and heating the curve of Kurt’s shoulder, “he’s-he’s impossible!”
“Why does anyone stay with anyone? I mean, it’s not like seventy five percent of relationships are even smart to begin with.” And Kurt is laughing in a soft way that only slightly betrays the way his body is absolutely thrumming inside.
“You can’t answer my question with a question,” Blaine raises an arm lazily and pokes Kurt in the space under his ribs, and Kurt squirms away with a couple of laughing squawks, landing with his head scrunched awkwardly in the space between the couch and Blaine’s side, “It’s not a questionnaire.” Kurt scrambles to sit back up but mostly only succeeds in sliding the blankets around and nearly falling off the couch, so he huffs in resignation and flops back down.
“Blaine,” he says, slow and with arched brows, “that doesn’t even make sense,” because it doesn’t, at all. Kurt’s fairly certain that his brain could form more coherent comebacks in his sleep. And apparently Blaine isn’t interested in coming up with comebacks at all, because all he does is laugh, loud and infectious like he’s laughing with Kurt even though Kurt isn’t laughing at all when he starts.
But then he is, soft and spiky at the same time, his body’s jittery thrum almost completely masked over by the roll of it as his toes cramp sharply in his socks.
“Um, Kurt?” Kurt looks up, his vision upside down from his position on the couch, and sees Finn standing awkwardly against the rail at the base of the stairs, wringing his hands around in the hem of his sweater, “and uh, Kurt’s friend.” He’s scratching a hand behind his ear in a quintessential Finn gesture of nerves and of course this would happen. Of course. Kurt knows what Finn is thinking he’s just walked in on, he knows, and even the thought of it is making Kurt want to bury his head between the couch cushions and just never ever come out.
“Yes,” he says, deliberate and muffled through tightly gritted teeth.
“Yeah uh, your dad called the house phone in the kitchen,” Finn is shifting his weight from foot to foot now, looking pointedly down at the floor pattern as if studying it, “I think he wants to talk to you, or something.”
Kurt sighs, rubbing a hand across the front of his hair, and says, “I’ll call him back in a few minutes, Finn.”
The voice he uses is sleepy but kind of patronizing, and Kurt watches as Finn mutters a quick “yeah, okay,” and bounds up the stairs with a haste Kurt wasn’t sure he actually had. Once he’s gone, Kurt turns to Blaine and says “You’d probably better go,” which he doesn’t mean, and doesn’t want to say, but probably should anyway. It is a lot later-and a lot darker-than it was when they’d first made their way downstairs.
“Yeah,” Blaine says, trying fruitlessly to smooth over the creases in his pants and pat down his hair. “Let me grab my shoes, okay?” He rifles around the blankets to dig them out and then sits on the floor to lace them up his ankles. Kurt rubs at his own eyes and stretches, listening to the prim snap of his back cracking as he moves to follow Blaine up the stairs.
Part 2