And You'll Spread Your Wings and You'll Take to the Sky [A]
Title: And You'll Spread Your Wings and You'll Take to the Sky
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine, side Cooper/OC
Spoilers (if any): through Season 4 so far - and any discrepancies are because I wrote this before the season started when so much was still so vague.
Warnings (if any): brief mentions of bullying
Word Count: 20k
Summary: ”This summer is important, important in a dark, looming 'your life will never be the same afterwards' kind of way - every fiber of his being is telling him he needs to make the most of it, of Kurt. How can he do that if he has to share him, to share him with his stupid well-intentioned-but-still-overbearing brother, and with yet another city that might steal a piece of Kurt's heart?”
A/N: This was initially me thinking, “yeah, I’ll sign up for the Tiny Bang, I might manage 5000 words if I try really hard” and ending up with this 20k word beast that totally got under my skin and refused to end, ever, until I had to refuse to touch the keyboard in order to make the boys shut up.
I couldn’t have done any of this without my amazing beta, insatiablyyours , who took my wafflings and made them pretty and listened to me rant and pointed out my flaws; who seemed to know what I wanted to say even when I couldn’t articulate it properly and managed to turn me into an almost passable American -- I think. If this is anything at all, G, it’s down to you and I will forever drink cocktails in your honour [honor -- do you see what I did there? ;) ]
Title is stolen shamelessly from Gershwin’s “‘Summertime”’ because Gershwin.
Links, if you’re interested to the songs featured in the fic:
Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters
Copacabana
Girls on Film
Summertime
I do not own anything other than an overactive imagination and too many pairs of shoes. You can find me on Tumblr here; come say hello!
: :
One thing you should know about Blaine Anderson is that he loves the summer. He loves the heat and the sunshine and the fact that there’s no school and the fact that he gets to be outdoors. More often than not he's with his boyfriend, who - in the privacy of their own homes - wears significantly fewer layers than he does the rest of the year. Summer is Blaine’s favorite season; even in the run up to Kurt’s graduation, Blaine was making plans for this summer, plans that involved taking advantage of the heat of Ohio and the increased freedom of being 18, not to mention being alone with Kurt and touching and tasting all that bare skin. Blaine loves summer and Blaine has plans. That is the first thing you should know.
Another thing you should know is that Blaine Anderson is a people-pleaser. He always has been and more than likely always will be. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily: he’s not a people-pleaser to the point of being a doormat - he doesn’t let people walk all over him and he has beliefs and values, opinions that he has absolutely no issue expressing and defending... He’d just rather see people happy than not. Unless it’s something really important, nine times out of ten he will back down and avoid confrontation, preferring to just nod and agree rather than get into an argument. Later, he'll usually take his frustrations out on the punching bag. This is how Blaine gets by.
All in all, Blaine likes to think he's pretty amenable. There really aren’t very many things he can think of that he categorically doesn’t want to do.
That said, Blaine doesn’t want to go to LA.
He really doesn’t.
It’s not because it’s Cooper that’s invited them, because he and Cooper have been getting along really well lately, so it’s not that at all - except that maybe it is, because Blaine isn’t an idiot and he knows it takes more than a week, a heartfelt Gotye song and a hug to fix the seven million problems he has with his older brother and he knows the main reason they've been getting along so well is because he has been in Ohio and Cooper has been, well, anywhere that isn’t.
But it’s not entirely because LA is Cooper’s idea. And it’s not because he doesn’t enjoy the idea of spending the summer at the beach in LA because hello, look at his skin please, he was born to tan. And it’s not because when Kurt had read the invitation he’d rolled over and buried his face in Blaine’s pillow and actually squealed. Squealed. And Blaine still doesn’t know whether he had been squealing at Cooper or at LA or at both, he just knows it had made his stomach tighten in that unpleasant way that he associates with always living in Cooper's shadow. And what if one day, now that Kurt has graduated, he leaves Blaine far, far behind?
Blaine’s main reason for not wanting to go to LA is a selfish one: he doesn’t want to share. This summer is important, important in a dark, looming “your life will never be the same afterwards” kind of way - every fiber of his being is telling him he needs to make the most of it, of Kurt. How can he do that if he has to share him, to share him with his stupid well-intentioned-but-still-overbearing brother, and with yet another city that might steal a piece of Kurt's heart? He’s still not quite ok with it, with the prospect of Kurt leaving and Blaine staying and being alone and of course Kurt is being a darling: he holds Blaine's hand and peppers his hair with kisses and whispers promises of always and never into his hair and Blaine believes him, he does. It doesn’t change the fact, though, that in a matter of weeks Kurt will be gone and Blaine won’t get to see him, to touch him every day; he will have to wait to tell Kurt things; he'll be in a place where his boyfriend is not (and he transferred schools because he couldn’t stand to be apart from the person he loved). He is absolutely petrified.
Blaine wishes, kind of, that he’d been the one to read the text from Coop and that he’d been able to delete it and never mention it to Kurt. Then they could spend the summer lounging in the Hudson/Hummels' garden, drinking Carole’s iced tea and not caring about anybody but each other - except that Blaine doesn’t have that kind of luck.
It had been Kurt who had read the message, because he’d taken to asking Blaine to read Kurt's texts aloud rather than passing over his phone; no matter how many times Blaine has said it’s fine, Kurt still feels guilty about the Chandler debacle earlier this year, feels like he has something to prove, feels that Blaine needs reassuring.
"Honestly Blaine, I just want you to know that I have nothing to hide, not now, not ever, and there is nothing on my phone that I wouldn’t want you to see.”
This meant, of course, that Blaine had to do the same - Sebastian had come before Chandler and even though Kurt insisted that he didn’t care about that now, that Sebastian was history and Blaine had nothing to prove anyway, Blaine knew that he kind of did. So when his phone beeped and Kurt had glanced over and said, “It’s Coop,” the only option Blaine had had, really, was to reply and ask, “What’s it say?”
Of course what it said, roughly, was, “You two are coming to visit because I’m Cooper Anderson and I'm your big bro which means I know best, Blainey, and this may be phrased like an open-ended invitation but I suggest you consider it non-negotiable: why don’t you and Kurt come visit?” Kurt hadn’t been able to read the text aloud fast enough, and then he’d done the whole face-in-pillow squealing thing. When Kurt had finally looked up his face had been all flushed and his eyes had been shining in a way they hadn’t since that day and Blaine had known in that second that he was screwed.
“LA, Blaine.”
“Yes.” Blaine had nodded his head slowly and a little unsurely, because this was Kurt and he was so excited and it would be awesome to go away, just the two of them. No adult supervision apart from Cooper, obviously, but he hardly behaved like an adult - Blaine doubted he had ever supervised anything in his life. But then, this was well and truly Cooper, with no buffers like Mom or Dad or even Mr. Schuester, and Blaine’s relationship with him was nothing if not tenacious. And Blaine had dreamt up those plans for this summer, plans that absolutely did not involve Cooper or LA or not having Kurt pretty much all to himself.
"LA, Blaine."
“Yes.” It wasn’t tentative at all the second time, it was just “yes” because God, what other answer was there when Kurt was looking at him like that?
And then Kurt had reached out and grabbed him by the wrist, tugging him down onto the bed and pushing his henley up, his long fingers pressing hard into the small of Blaine’s back, kissing him hungrily, desperately. Blaine had tried not to focus on the fact that he was getting laid off the back of his brother being “so handsome and good”; to just go with it. Afterwards, when Kurt had laid curled into him, his hand curled loosely round Blaine’s bicep and his breath ghosting across his chest, Kurt had whispered it reverently into the afterglow: “LA, Blaine.”
And it’s not just because of the blowjob - although Kurt is amazing at giving head - but it’s because Blaine wants to give Kurt everything; because Kurt deserves it; because Blaine remembers “I want my senior year to be magical” and it’s like a punch to the gut - it makes histhroat hurt every time.
A vacation to Los Angeles isn’t going to make it all better, won’t make up for the fact that Kurt’s senior year was less magic and more ridicule, not only from his peers but even from the faculty: “Hummel’s too much of a lady,” “Porcelina,” and so much more; some bastard going after Kurt with a doctored slushie - fair enough, Blaine had been the one to be almost blinded but it had been meant for Kurt -; losing the election; and everything with Karofsky, just knockback after knockback after soul-destroying knockback...
Of course, not getting into NYADA wasn’t a total disaster: Kurt actually had a back-up plan and a choice of colleges between which he spent the back end of his senior year debating, because he’s Kurt Hummel and anybody that thought he wouldn’t have had plans A through Z clearly knows him not at all. But all the security in the world doesn’t begin to make up for the fact that NYADA said no, so if this vacation will ease the sting just a little bit then it’s a no-brainer, really; so Blaine had sighed, picked up his cell, and sent Cooper a curt text in reply: “Yeah. Ok.”
And that had been it. It had spiralled out of Blaine's control then.
What followed was a long and awkward conversation with Burt about how yes they’d be staying with Cooper and yes of course he was a responsible adult - God, Blaine hated lying to Burt Hummel, was still waiting actually for some kind of lightning bolt from the heavens to strike him down - and yes they’d be supervised at all times and yes, Carole, he is the brother from the credit rating advertisement, I only have one and yes of course you think he’s wonderful how is this my life. Carole seemed to have been sold from that moment on; Burt on the other hand had been a tougher nut to crack. Good fortune, then, that Kurt had 18 years of experience doing so.
He had led with the guilt trip: “I just had my dreams snatched cruelly away, I’m heartbroken and I’m lost and don’t you think I need a little change of scenery?” The underlying “since I might not be getting out of here anytime soon and I’m suffocating” had gone unspoken but not unheard. Burt had raised an eyebrow. Kurt had switched quickly to irate because, “I just graduated high school, Dad, I’m not a kid. I’m leaving home any day now and you won’t even let me go on a supervised vacation with my boyfriend.”
Blaine hadn't been able to focus then on how justified Kurt's argument was or wasn't. Couldn't make sense of it through the “any day now” that kept roaring in his ears, until he couldn’t hear anything else, see anything else. It had taken Kurt’s hand squeezing his knee and Kurt's voice gentle in his ear to bring him back.
Blaine still wasn’t sure how he was going to survive without Kurt, wasn’t even sure if he had it in him and he hated himself, hated himself, for the fact that he was so hooked on this boy.
Burt had relented in the end. Blaine had kind of always known he would; something in the tilt of Burt’s head, the look in his eyes suggested he only put up a fight to try and assert some kind of control.
“I’m still your Dad, kid, I still make the rules.”
Except Blaine thought, you love Kurt Hummel and you have to accept that you don’t make any of the rules at all, not really. It was like some kind of fairy magic: they’d walk on hot coals just to see that smile, the one that makes Kurt's eyes crinkle, the one that nobody had seen since they’d sent Rachel off at the train station. Kurt had driven home that day via the ice cream parlor and eaten a sundae bigger than his head, with extra toppings, and then he had totally reorganized his wardrobe. Not that it was one-sided; Kurt would do the same for others, Blaine knew, for him and Burt and Rachel and for any of the people lucky enough to be part of his inner circle, even for Santana. Kurt would do whatever it took to help them, to make their lives easier, to hear them laugh. And Blaine laughed more with Kurt than he had in his life before, ever.
It had been easier convincing Blaine's own parents.
“Cooper invited Kurt and I to stay for a while.”
“Hmm? With him?”
“Yeah. That ok?”
“If you like. Maybe you can talk some sense into him, then - he really doesn’t seem to be using his head when choosing jobs lately; God knows it’s embarrassing when people keep asking if that’s my son advertising credit ratings of all things. He seems to listen to you, Blaine. You be sensible though, you hear? Don’t make us regret trusting you.”
“I won’t.”
“Good. And we’ll be calling him, setting up ground rules. This is not an excuse to go wild, Blaine.”
“Of course not.”
A clap on the back from his father and a soft smile from his mother. Blaine wished his parents cared enough to say no.
Santana had cackled when he’d told her, over coffee at the Lima Bean while Kurt was helping his dad at the garage. Held her sides and thrown her head back and just laughed and laughed. Apparently it was amusing that Blaine was going to be forced to deal with Cooper in his natural habitat. He knew it was only because she’s jealous; she has some weird hetero crush on Cooper (and why is everyone in the world in love with Blaine’s brother?) but still.
Kurt doesn't understand Blaine's friendship with Santana. Blaine tries sometimes to convince Kurt that she's not as caustic as she seems; she's just a scared misunderstood little girl really, hiding behind a jagged front to protect herself in the same way Kurt himself does, to a degree. It makes Blaine wish, privately that he could just fix things, not them so much because they’re not broken but fix…well, the world, really. The world that's given them so much cause to protect themselves.
Kurt just rolls his eyes.
”She's not an armadillo, Blaine.”
Blaine's pretty sure that a lot of Kurt's derision when it comes to Santana is due to his own insecurities, his own defenses against cutting words that he can’t help associating with slushies and dumpsters and being thrown against lockers, even though Santana was never the direct cause of any of those things. So Kurt and Santana aren’t friends in the way Blaine and Santana are, but Blaine knows that Kurt loves her - Blaine knows it viscerally, knows that Kurt helped her pick a prom dress, that Santana played a huge part in making Kurt’s return to McKinley possible. Kurt even proposes they see her outside of school once in a blue moon. Kurt might not understand her but he loves her still, in the way one loves an unbearable sibling.
In the way Blaine loves Cooper.
Blaine knows you can't choose your family; sometimes he wonders how the hell it happened, how he got him as a brother when they have so little in common. He wonders some days whether it might have been better to be an only child or whether he was somehow mistakenly handed to the wrong family at birth, but when it comes down to it, his family are the people that will always (usually) be there on some level - perhaps not always in the way he’d expect or hope - but there all the same, when he needs them. Cooper has always been there for Blaine; sometimes Blaine wishes he wasn’t because he’s Cooper, God, and he makes everything into a production whereas Blaine just likes to keep his head down for the most part at least (unless the occasion calls for theatricality - everything in moderation after all), but deep down he’s glad of his brother's existence.
It’s the same with Santana. Nobody asked her to patrol the corridors so Kurt could go back to McKinley and not live in fear; nobody asked her to show Sebastian what the New Directions were made of after that whole thing with the slushie. She just did it. She did it because the New Directions, they’re a family of sorts and as much as they snipe and catcall and outright hurt each other, the second anybody from the outside so much as looks at them funny, they close ranks. Maybe Blaine wouldn't have advised or supported the violin-off-paired-with-underboob scheme, but just because he disagreed with her strategy doesn't mean he wasn't grateful she was looking out.
: :
After Blaine had sung ”It's Not Right” in glee, Santana had come to him in the Lima Bean, demanded he buy her a coffee and dragged him to a table where she'd looked right at him over the top of her cup, her stare so piercing he'd had to look away.
“Fuck me, Bow Tie, that was some performance,” she'd said.
“I don't want to talk about it.”
She ignored him. “You've got it wrong, you know.”
“You have zero clue what's going on here. And I really don't want to...'”
“It's not rocket science. You think Hummel cheated on you, I'm telling you he didn't. Simple 's that.”
“It's more complicated than you think.”
“Always is, sweet cheeks, but here's the thing: you and Kurt have always been more vomit-inducing than a bottle of skittles vodka. Whatever you think is going on, you've got it wrong. There’s no way he played you.”
“I found texts.”
“And I heard him say you were being ridiculous - I have no idea why it's taken him this long to work that out, you advertise your ridiculousness daily on a bow tie round your neck - but my point is, if he says you're pulling a Berry-esque fit then you probably are.”
Blaine had sighed, looked down at the table feeling his eyes fill with tears again, knowing Santana would never let him live it down if she saw him cry.
“Jesus. It's worse than I thought.” She had reached forward and touched the back of his hand lightly with the tips of her fingers, the contact brief and feather soft before she drew her hand back, leaning back in her seat and folding her arms across her chest. “Look, here's how I see it. As much as it pains me to say, it's pretty clear you and Kurt are the real deal. It's also pretty clear that even though you have a hot as hell voice and you're really angry right now, the lyrics to that song are bullshit. You don't think you'd rather be alone, without Kurt in your life, so man up, stop singing and crying and go talk to your boy. Don't fuck this up.”
: :
Cooper had paid for the plane tickets: open-ended although they’d promised Burt no more than a month and Blaine was leaning towards a week, tops, while trying to ignore Kurt’s dreamy “just think, Blaine, I could be discovered and never come back. I could be Coop’s roommate and win a Golden Globe before Rachel even has time to say Tony.” As if that wasn’t the stuff nightmares were made of. It was a graduation present for Kurt, which was sweet of Coop if a little weird, and it totally outshone Blaine’s monogrammed towels, which he’d put a lot of thought into, dammit. Nevertheless, it wasn't Cooper who had spent days of early June curled on Kurt’s bed with his feet tucked under him, surrounded by sweaters and scarves and pants and shorts and t-shirts and hats (how does Kurt manage to look hot in everything he ever tries on ever, really?) while Kurt had tossed outfit after outfit aside, trying to mix and match. He'd ended up with his fingers pressed to his temples, his eyes closed.
“This is a disaster, Blaine. My wardrobe is not designed for Los Angeles.”
It had been up to Blaine to calm him down with kisses and gentle words; to help him take a step back and regroup; to nod his head encouragingly at each item Kurt lovingly placed into his case and to slowly convince him all over again that LA was a fabulous idea and they’d be fabulous, making memories they’d treasure forever. That of course they wouldn’t be better here in Lima, Kurt, in your back garden where your wardrobe works perfectly... and there Kurt was working that freaking magic again.
On the day they're to travel west, they meet at the airport, stupidly early in the morning. Kurt’s wearing long grey shorts and an ice blue boat-necked t-shirt and Blaine can see his collarbone - is everybody's collarbone as delectable as Kurt's? This flight is going to be hell because Blaine already wants every stitch of clothing off him, like, now. Blaine doesn’t think he’s ever seen Kurt look so casual outside of booty camp or his own house. Or as hot. He can’t stop staring. Through the goodbyes and the hugs and the promises to behave and the “I’m 18, Dad, not 8”s, Blaine can’t take his eyes off Kurt and Kurt turns to him when they are finally, finally alone and quirks an eyebrow.
“What?” Kurt asks, nonchalant.
“I’m just thinking.” Blaine shrugs.
“About what?” He takes a step closer and Blaine thinks he probably already knows.
“I’m wondering,” he says with a smile, flicking his eyes to Kurt’s and then away again, “whether all the people in all the world who have boyfriends are driven to distraction by how hot said boyfriends are. I mean, I can’t even remember my name when I’m around you, Kurt. Is that how it is for everyone? Is that, like, a thing?” He gestures round the airport, his stomach dipping at the pleased and slightly smug smile on Kurt’s face.
“Statistically,” Kurt replies, stepping closer again, “I’m going to say yes.”
“'Statistically'?”
“I took a brief poll,” and it’s Blaine’s turn to raise an eyebrow now, “and the results were unanimous actually. Being distracted to the point of insanity by one’s incredibly hot boyfriend is indeed, a 'thing.'”
“Oh really?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“And just how many people took part in this poll, exactly?”
“Oh,” Kurt says airily, reaching down for the messenger bag that’s been resting against his calf and slinging it easily over his shoulder as their final boarding call is announced, “Just two."
He turns and heads towards the gate with a look in his eyes that says “come the fuck on, Blaine” and with a small smile that's right out of Bridget Jones. And Blaine wants to catch him, to grab him by that perfect face and just kiss him 'til he can’t breathe and sometimes he just hates Ohio and the fact that he can’t do that.
Maybe LA won’t be so bad after all.
: :
Cooper is waiting for them at Arrivals, just like he’d said he would be. Slightly back from the pressing crowds waiting for loved ones, leaning casually against a wall and holding up a piece of cardboard with “Paging Blainers” scrawled across it in thick, black, block capitals. He has one ankle crossed over the other, his lips quirked in a smirk, his eyes shielded by dark sunglasses. Ray-Bans. Inside. Blaine feels his heart rate increase just a little because that’s his brother and despite the sunglasses and the sign he can’t help it: he’s missed him.
“Only Coop,” Blaine mutters to Kurt, pointing in Cooper's general direction and then raising his arm in a wave that his brother doesn’t return. “Only Coop would believe he actually pulls off shades indoors.”
“Probably trying to hide from the paparazzi, darling,” Kurt drawls, grabbing Blaine by the hand because they’re not in Lima anymore, Toto, and he feels like he can. Blaine grins. He can’t help it. Something shifted in him on the plane, his forehead pressed to the window and Kurt asleep on his shoulder, snuffling quietly. Somehow LA doesn’t feel anymore like Cooper is trying simultaneously to annoy him and outshine him, or like a big shiny city is trying to infringe on his time with Kurt. Instead it feels like an adventure, an opportunity, another first he can cross off his list with Kurt by his side. It feels like sunshine and movie stars and Kurt’s hand in his whenever, wherever, however - despite himself, Blaine is excited. He lets Kurt pull him through all the people, the crowd parting (or so it feels) to let two boys and too much luggage pass until they come to a stop. Kurt lets go of his case - but not of Blaine - and grins.
“Hey,” Kurt says, practically bouncing with excitement, and Blaine just wants to kiss him. He always wants to.
Cooper straightens up then, smiles his easy, white-toothed smile, and waves his homemade sign at them, practically shoving it in Blaine’s face as he pulls Kurt into a one-armed hug.
“Kurt! Well done. You know, for finishing school.”
Blaine rolls his eyes, grabbing the sign and huffing out a laugh, and then Kurt’s straightening his shirt and pretending to not even be just a little bit ruffled that Cooper Anderson just hugged him. Blaine is just thinking how adorable that is when Cooper wraps him up in his arms, squeezing tight, lifting him off the ground and spinning him around.
“You know what I love about you most, Squirt? That you’ll never be too big for me to do this.”
Blaine can’t even bring himself to be pissed at the overdone dig at his height or the hated nickname because Cooper’s laughing and Kurt’s laughing and Blaine is pretty sure he can smell the ocean from right there in LAX.
“Put me down, Cooper, God.”
Cooper gives him a final spin before setting him down on his feet and grabbing their cases. “Come on then, boys and boys. Let’s get out of here.”
He’s renting an apartment in Santa Monica, he tells them as they head for the parking lot, and Kurt squeezes Blaine’s hand in excitement. Santa Monica.
Blaine wonders if the urge to roll his eyes every time his brother opens his mouth will ever dissipate.
It's a summer rental because Cooper’s taking a break from work, which Blaine thinks is clearly code for “there is a serious shortage of call-backs,” but it’s only a 30 minute drive from the airport and a 30 minute drive from "the town” (which Blaine assumes means Hollywood). Cooper’s already got plans to show the boys all the sights and he might have to work next week, (“There’s this fantastic pilot, Blaine, this could be my big break…can’t you just imagine me as a dDoctor?” Honestly, Blaine really can’t; the very thought terrifies him, but he does hope this is his brother’s big break) but he’s sure he can get both boys on set - they’re hardly going to say no to him, after all. His place is right by the beach so they can play volleyball (“...like we did when we were kids, Blainers. I’m pretty sure I can still kick your ass,” “I’m pretty sure you can, Coop, if you still cheat.”) and maybe surf and there are some awesome bars (“You guys do have cards? Do not tell the ‘rentals I asked you that, Blaine. What happens in Hollywood stays in Hollywood,” he'd said as he held out a fist to be bumped) - Blaine has to admit it sounds like fun. Kurt just seems to be in a daze as he listens, looking at Cooper in awe and hand still clasping Blaine's tightly. It makes Blaine laugh because witnessing Cooper Anderson at full speed for the first time is nothing if not exhausting.
“How do you actually breathe?” Kurt asks when Cooper finally stops talking. Cooper just grins, and shrugs and gestures grandly.
“Your carriage awaits,” he says.
“This is your car?” Kurt says exactly what Blaine was thinking. Blaine would proudly put it down to the two of them being totally in-tune normally except that even a blind person would be surprised to find Cooper pointing a car key at a grimy convertible jeep with “bite me” written in the dirt on its trunk and some kind of prayer beads hanging from the rearview mirror. Cooper rolls his eyes.
“No, this is Margo's car. My car wouldn't hold all your shit.”
“Who's...”
“Get in.” Cooper pulls open the passenger door and bows to Kurt. “You're in the back, B, since Kurt's a guest.”
Technically, Blaine thinks, he's a guest too, but he is nothing if not chivalrous and at least if he's in the back he can concentrate on the way Kurt's hair curls at the nape of his neck and not on Cooper's driving. He still doesn't actually know how his brother got a license; Blaine suspects it was downloaded off the Internet.
“I'm sorry you didn’t get into NYADA, Kurt,” Cooper says once they're on the road. Blaine sees Kurt stiffen a little, his shoulders tensing; he thinks he can see the set of Kurt's jaw even from behind. A part of him wants to interject but it's bound to come up again and maybe it's best to get it out of the way now. He settles for reaching forward and squeezing Kurt's shoulder gently.
“Yeah,” Kurt says, softly. “Me too.” It's his standard answer now the pain has dulled a little and the reality has set in. He saves the tears, what he calls the “histrionics,” for when it's just him and Blaine. Blaine is so proud of his dignity and his courage; to think he ever tried to advise Kurt on courage, it seems laughable when he looks at the man his boyfriend has become: accepting the NYADA rejection with his head held high even though everybody who heard his audition knows he deserved it, gracefully accepting condolences, exchanging excited texts with Rachel even as she prepares to live out his dream. Blaine finds something new about Kurt to captivate him every single day.
“I’m sure you don’t want to talk about it,” Cooper continues, “but don’t give up hope. I mean, look at me. Oh, that reminds me.” He reaches behind himself into the backseat, grabbing at an envelope that rests on the seat next to Blaine’s thigh. “I got you something; call it moral support or something.”
He hands the envelope to Kurt, who opens it quizzically, looking over his shoulder at Blaine, who just shrugs. He has no idea.
“Oh my God, Cooper.” It’s Blaine that speaks, his chin resting on the back of Kurt’s seat, eyes widening in horror as Kurt pulls from the envelope a headshot of Cooper. Signed and dedicated: “To Kurt - Never give up. Love, Cooper Anderson.”
“Are you being serious right now?”
“Blaine,” Kurt chastises him, but Blaine can tell from his tone that he’s swallowing down a laugh. “Thank you, Cooper, that’s very…sweet. I’ll make sure to place it somewhere prominent so I can draw from it whenever I do in fact feel like giving up.”
He taps the photo with his forefinger before sliding it back into his envelope, and Blaine falls back into his seat with a groan, covering his eyes with his hands and wondering just how open-ended their tickets are - as in, could they realistically get on a plane home within the next hour?
“Well yes,” Cooper is still speaking, “I know you probably felt a bit uncomfortable about wanting to ask for an autograph during my time teaching at McKinley, when I was signing for your buds...” and seriously, Blaine thinks, he’s probably put that train wreck of a week down on his resumé as “drama teacher.”
“...Because of our mutual connection to Blaine and all, so this felt like the ideal way of showing my support. Anything you need, Kurt: advice, contacts, anything at all, you only have to ask. If you’re as much of a keeper as Blaine says you are, then I plan to have your back.”
And he’s so damn earnest that Blaine wants to hug him as much as he wants to maim him.
: :
Margo, it turns out, is Cooper's girlfriend. The second he lays eyes on her Blaine wants to bundle her up, take her back to Ohio and present her to his parents: “Mom, Dad, you think it sucks that I'm gay? This is who Cooper's dating.” Not because he thinks he’s not going to like her, she looks awesome, but because his parents are so guilty of judging books by covers. The frustrated little brother in him can’t help but cling to whatever little thing might make Cooper less than perfect and so in turn might make Blaine less than the disappointing son. Sometimes he just wants to be able to stand in front of them and say, “Look, see, it’s not just me that’s refusing to conform to your stupid expectations.” It’s kind of vindictive, Blaine knows it is, but he’s spent a lifetime trying to measure up and there’s times you just have to take what you can get.
She's beautiful, there's no denying it; she also has bright pink streaks in her short black hair and a nose ring and a tattoo across her collarbone that must have killed - she is so far away from Cooper's type that Blaine wonders if they disembarked the plane in a parallel universe. She's wearing a floaty linen skirt and a strappy top and each of her fingernails is painted a different color and as she leans in to kiss Blaine on the cheek he gets a not-altogether-unpleasant whiff of tobacco and liquorice.
Her voice is soft and warm. “Hey you guys, we're so glad you're here.”
“Your brother,” Kurt mutters quietly enough that only Blaine can hear, “is dating Quinn Fabray circa early senior year.”
“Right?” Blaine mutters back before they both fix Margo with their best Dalton full-wattage smiles and accept the ice cold lemonade - but not the cigarettes - and collapse onto the sofa while Cooper brings their bags in from the jeep. Margo is a poet slash bartender: poet for the love of it and bartender for the cash. She's been dating Cooper since last summer. A whole year; Blaine is amazed. Her favorite film is Fight Club, her favorite book Fear and Loathing and she's seen Wicked seven times, twice on Broadway. Kurt is in love with her in five minutes flat; he tells her that her ”fashion choices” would have labeled her a “skank” in Lima, but that she can be the Elphaba to his Glinda if she wants, and Blaine thinks her laugh in response is his second favorite of all laughs ever.
By the time Cooper has brought the last bag from the car, the lemonade is finished, Blaine is on the sofa with his feet curled beneath him, Kurt is singing “Popular” at Margo and Margo is still laughing and declaring Kurt to be “all kinds of awesome.”
“I know I said to make yourselves at home guys, but shit.”
Margo reaches for Cooper, who stands in the lounge looking bemused. She tugs him down to sit beside her, still laughing as Kurt stops singing and pretends to be affronted at the interruption. “Coop,” she says, “your brother and his boy are just precious. Can we keep them?”
: :
It's possibly the best vacation he's been on, Blaine decides three days in. He is so glad they came to LA, so glad for Cooper and who thought he'd ever be saying that. Cooper has been true to his word and they've seen more sights so far this week than Kurt says he's seen in his life. Blaine's used to it: an overdose of culture is par for the course when you're an Anderson, but Kurt hasn't seen much of the world outside of Ohio and he is lapping it up, demanding an itinerary off Cooper each evening and researching extensively, long fingers tapping quickly at the screen of Blaine's iPad before finally pulling outfits from the closet, each day's clothes coordinated perfectly with the agenda. Blaine's clothes still lie in his case because despite Kurt's best bitch face, Blaine is on vacation and why waste precious time packing and unpacking, God.
They've already done the double decker bus tour, complete with Cooper acting as tour guide and Kurt pretending to grumble about the wind in his hair as he gripped Blaine's knee in excitement. Kurt didn't even complain when Blaine managed to get him in pretty much every photograph he shot - and there were a lot of photographs: Blaine is not an amateur photographer in name only, thank you very much.
They saw the Hollywood sign and Grauman's Chinese Theatre and Blaine put his hands in Johnny Depp's prints on the Walk of Fame.
“My hands have been where his hands have been. I'm never washing again.”
“His hands and the hands of 70 million other people who probably don't wash after using the bathroom.”
“Johnny Depp, Kurt.”
“Basic hygiene, Blaine,” Kurt had said, squeezing a generous dollop of hand sanitizer into Blaine's reluctantly upturned palms.
“You guys are so married," Margo had said fondly. Kurt had flushed while Blaine just grinned.
It's Margo's idea to stay in and relax that night. It's been three days of nonstop action and Blaine is glad for the chance to pull on his sweats and sit curled into Kurt's side, sharing take-out from the box and drinking a beer. He feels warm and fuzzy; Kurt is at the same time solid and soft beside him and it feels different somehow to all the times they've been comfy like this at home. It's as though in just three days Kurt has managed to wash away the grime of Ohio to reveal a brighter version of himself: more ready to laugh, with the same quick wit but with less bite. His movements are as graceful as ever but somehow more fluid; he's mesmerizing and Blaine is mesmerized, always. He's wrapping Blaine's hair around his fingers now as they eat and drink and talk. Blaine is fresh from the shower and his hair is damp and gel-free. Kurt is making the most of it: each tug of a curl serves as a reminder that Kurt loves him wholly - bushy-haired or not, Kurt loves him.
Margo is asking how long they've been together and Kurt smiles. “Longer than you two.”
And Blaine can't help but feel a little smug at that; it's ingrained, the need to always compete with his brother, to make the most of the times when he comes out on top.
“First love?” Margo asks and they answer together, a quiet “yes,” a shared smile and then Kurt says,
”He was mine at least.”
Coop leans forward as though he can smell a story. “What, Kurt isn't your first love, brother?”
“Of course he is, first and only.” He looks up at Kurt. “You are.”
Kurt raises an eyebrow and turns to Cooper and Margo, eyes alive with mischief. “I have two words for you: Gap. Attack.” Kurt pops the cap off another beer bottle as he tells the story, embellished a little for dramatic effect and illustrated by song. It is of course the line about leaving toys in drawers that he chooses to sing to make his point, jumping to his feet and playing Blaine to Margo's Jeremiah, his every expression exaggerated. Soon enough, Blaine is groaning and hushing him and defending Jeremiah's hair (because it wasn't that bad). When Kurt finally drops back down beside him they're all breathless with laughter. Cooper shakes his head.
“Oh Blainers.”
“Don't even!” Blaine is still laughing as he holds a finger in the air, a mock stern look on his face, his eyes twinkling as he looks from his brother to his boyfriend. “Don't. And if we're oversharing,” he grins, “Kurt was in love with his brother.”
“Kurt!” Margo is a combination of scandalized and delighted.
“Stepbrother, Blaine, and he wasn't even that at the time, God. I hate you.”
“You love me.”
“I do.” Kurt’s smiling, his voice full of barely suppressed laughter, and his eyes when he looks at Blaine are so soft and full of love that it makes Blaine’s breath catch. There is nothing, Blaine thinks, that will ever compare to loving and being loved by this boy.
: :
California is good for Kurt. This surprises Blaine because it’s Kurt and he likens himself to porcelain and he’s all layers and scarves and Broadway and culture. Kurt’s a boy meant for the city streets but somehow, here, he’s something else entirely. He’s slightly tan - and oh my God, that’s hot - and a little freckled, also hot. He’s showing more skin than Blaine has ever known him to show in public: long shorts, bare feet, thin t-shirts. He’s got slightly mussed hair, he smells like coconut and tastes like sunscreen, and he’s carefree - scrunched-up nose and that smile that shows his canines and the long lines of his neck are elongated as he throws his head back to laugh. And it’s like every time he moves Blaine just wants to do him, hard.
It’s like he’s left the Kurt Hummel whom NYADA rejected back in Lima, Ohio - the one he brought on vacation is just Kurt and Blaine loves this, loves him.
They sit on the beach: Blaine lays back with his head rested on Kurt’s thigh and Kurt scoops handfuls of sand, letting the grains trickle slowly through his fingers as he talks to Margo and Cooper surfs; he is but a tiny dot in the crashing waves (“I know it probably looks effortless, but a body this good? It takes work.”) It strikes Blaine now that Kurt needed this more than anybody ever realized; Blaine is so glad they came because he’s been feeling so helpless in the wake of that letter. For weeks he’s been unable to say much other than “it’s so unfair” and “you killed that audition, Kurt” and “I don’t understand how this happened” - all of which is incredibly useless and probably quite patronizing because it has happened after all and all the fucking indignation in the world won’t change that. He’s been unable to do anything other than viciously defend Kurt’s talents and hold him while he cries; listen while he rants and tell him every single day how loved he is. None of it has felt like enough, like anything, until now.
Blaine picked up snatches of conversation during their first night here while laying down in the living room in that weird slightly tipsy half-awake state, face down on the rug that Kurt thinks Margo probably made herself, half-listening while the two of them talked. He’s had this conversation with Kurt so many times since the NYADA letter came; they’ve gone forwards and backwards, looking at it from countless different angles. Blaine is happy to continue doing so for as long as Kurt needs. This was the first time, though, that he heard Kurt let it all out to somebody other than him. It was different somehow, being on the outside of the conversation and listening in; listening to Kurt bare his soul to this girl he hardly knew. He heard how Kurt was devastated, how Tibideaux had built him up and knocked him down and isn’t that just unnecessary and cruel? How it hurt more than anything because he’d let himself believe, and what now? All Kurt had been able to think was how anything else could be any good if it wasn't that. Blaine’s heart had clenched in his chest and he’d forced himself awake and up - he’d grabbed Kurt’s face in his hands and just kissed him, trying to convey through actions what he still didn’t have the words to say.
But now it’s different. Now they’re on the beach in the afternoon, not at the apartment at night, and they’re sober and Kurt is talking to Margo again. Blaine hears how the sunshine feels like a tonic and he hears “my brother” and “my best friend” and how Kurt wouldn’t trade places with Rachel for anything, ever, not ever - he’s so vicious when he says it that Blaine raises his eyebrows in surprise, doesn’t open his eyes but smiles a little as Kurt’s fingers continue to card through his hair. Kurt says, “She might have NYADA but she doesn’t have Finn and being here, with you, with Blaine like this. God, NYADA’s just, well, it’s nothing - you know, not next to him.” Blaine reaches up, grabbing Kurt’s hand and bringing it to his lips, pressing a kiss to his palm and closing his fingers around it. Saying without saying, “I’m here and I love you, too.”
“Volleyball,” Cooper announces, (disturbing the peace, Blaine notes, as usual). Blaine opens his eyes to see Cooper shaking saltwater from his hair like some kind of over-enthusiastic dog and is just about to open his mouth and retort when there are hands grabbing his ankles and dragging him across the sand. “Come on Blaine, no time for sitting on your ass.”
“Get the hell off of me, Coop!” Blaine yells; his brother is a dick. He tries to wriggle free and fails miserably. “And who made you Dad anyway? We’re on vacation and we’ll sit on our asses if we please.”
“But Blainers.” Cooper lets go of his ankles but he moves fast - before Blaine has had time to really register that he’s free, Cooper is straddling his chest, pinning him into the sand. “Team sports,” he breathes, “It’s the Anderson way.”
“Get the hell off me,” Blaine repeats, lifting his hips and bending his knees and then they’re rolling around, all arms and legs and fuck that was Cooper’s teeth. He always did play dirty. A scuffle of Andersons on a Santa Monica beach; Blaine can hear Kurt and Margo laughing in the background and he is silently clapping himself on the back for taking up boxing because he might be small but he’s strong and he’s fast. He wriggles free, pushing Cooper away 'til they’re both laid side by side on their backs, gasping for breath.
“Is it bad...” Kurt asks, “that I thought that was really hot?” All Blaine can do is feebly flip him off.
There’s a bit of a disagreement over teams. Blaine says Andersons vs. Newcomers but Kurt says that’s hardly fair since Coop and Blaine have a lifetime of practice. Cooper suggests Kurt joins him to play vs. Blaine and Margo but Blaine’s having none of that because, “on what planet is it even remotely fair to pitch the people of over average height against Margo and me?”
They toss a coin for it in the end and Blaine ends up teamed with Kurt. Which seems fine - and if he's honest, it's what he'd been angling for all along - except they’re ten minutes into the game before he realizes he should've just let Cooper make the decision in the first place; whatever team Blaine ended up on would have lost. They’re being annihilated because Kurt is just picking it up to serve and Blaine is already distracted.
Distracted by Kurt.
Kurt and his long legs and his bare feet and the trickle of sweat that’s running down the back of his neck and the way he runs his hand through his hair... and the way that when someone calls time-out and he thinks no one's looking, he lifts up the hem of his t-shirt to wipe sweat from his face and oh my fucking God Blaine is turned on right now. This is Kurt like he's never seen him: he’s all toned and sweaty and masculine, but more than anything he's loose and Blaine wants to push him down into the sand and lick the sweat off him and just rut against him, like, forever.
: :
Blaine wakes before Kurt the morning of the fifth day, which is unheard of, really, because Kurt is Kurt and Blaine is Blaine; while Kurt likes to make the most of every single day, Blaine believes his bed is his best friend second only to Kurt. He lays for a while in the semi-darkness, listening to the soft rise and fall of Kurt’s breathing, tries to fall back asleep but can’t. He shifts a little and hears someone moving around in the kitchen, detects the faint but unmistakeable smell of fresh coffee. Kurt’s rolled over in the night and he’s laid on his front now, one arm slung across Blaine’s bare middle. Blaine lifts it gently to slide out from beneath it, pressing a kiss gently to the back of Kurt’s hand before placing it back down and sliding himself slowly from the bed. Kurt snuffles at the disturbance and Blaine freezes, not wanting to wake him just yet, but Kurt just snuggles a little further under the sheets, Blaine watches him for a moment and it’s so tempting to lean in, to press his lips and just maybe his tongue to the expanse of Kurt’s skin, flushed and warm where it lays against the white sheets, kissing him all over, kissing him slowly awake; except he looks so peaceful that to wake him - even with kisses - would be unfair.
He grins and wonders if this is why Kurt has been in such a good mood every morning so far: because he’s woken up to this, to Blaine naked and asleep in their bed and he's imagined a future where this is just what happens, where they wake up together every single morning. Just the notion of it makes Blaine want to dance; instead, he grabs his pajama pants from the floor and slips quietly out of the room.
“Oh good.” Cooper is leaning against the island in the kitchen when Blaine pads through, rubbing sleep from his eyes and yawning. He has a mug of coffee in his hand and he pours another from the cafetière, which Blaine takes with a grateful smile as he lifts himself onto a stool, wondering why it is that everyone but him seems to be a morning person. “I was about to wake you,” Cooper says, “The grand plan for today...” Cooper drumrolls his fingertips on the countertop and Blaine grins sleepily, “is surfing.”
Blaine shakes his head. “Oh, I dunno, Coop. I mean I can’t and I don’t think Kurt...”
“Kurt’s not invited,” Cooper says simply, “and I’m going to teach you. That’s the point.”
“But Kurt…”
“Will be fine on his own for one day. Margo’s around, and Kurt strikes me as the independent type anyway. I’m sure he can keep himself entertained.”
Blaine wants to argue, wonders whether he should because this was supposed to be his and Kurt’s vacation together - but Cooper looks so excited, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet, already dressed in board shorts and a rash guard and Blaine's always wanted to surf... He takes a mouthful of his coffee and shrugs his shoulders. “Yeah, ok. Cool.”
He makes Cooper take a photo of him at the beach once he’s zipped into his wetsuit. Ignoring his brother’s mocking “Jesus, you seriously have the itsy bitsiest waist, baby brother” and grinning wildly at his phone, Blaine quickly fires off a picture message knowing that Kurt will appreciate the way the heavy black fabric clings everywhere it touches. He’s right - the reply is practically instantaneous: “come back, right now. the apartment is empty and sea water is bad for your skin. <3”
“It’s shit what happened to Kurt with NYADA,” Cooper states when he finally agrees they can stop to rest, pulling the ring on a can of coke he’d had the sense to stash in a duffel bag. He takes a long mouthful. Blaine nods, because it is shit and there’s not a lot more to say than that.
“He seems like he’ll be ok though?” Cooper asks and Blaine nods again.
“He will be,” he says confidently, “I don’t think he’s quite figured out what he’s going to do yet, but he has options and he’ll be fabulous no matter what he decides.”
“He still planning on going to the Big Apple?”
“Yeah. That’s the one part of the plan that’s never been up for debate. Kurt’ll be in New York by the end of summer come hell or high water. Although he might be considering LA as a viable alternative right now.” He gives Cooper a mock glare, hopes he’s pitched his tone lightly enough - apparently not, as Cooper raises an eyebrow.
“And you’re cool with that? With him leaving?”
He shrugs and Coop kicks at him, demanding an answer. Blaine sighs and lies back, looking up at the blue sky as though somewhere, where there should be clouds he’ll find answers instead.
“I think so? Except, no. When he didn’t get into NYADA, a horrible little part of me hoped it’d make him stay. I hate myself for it, but I've always hated the thought of him leaving. I’m not sure I can existwithout him.” He chances a glance at Cooper. “Don’t look at me like that. I know it’s a dick thing to even think but you don’t know; it got bad for a while. We almost broke up.”
“But you didn’t and he’s still going, so how’d you fix it?”
“We’re in show choir and it was Whitney week,” Blaine says dryly, “How do you think?”
Cooper laughs and Blaine grins back, so happy right in this moment that he could burst with it; it's so easy, so nice, being here with Cooper like this, hanging out and just talking. Sometimes Blaine feels like he was a little ripped off; he was promised a big brother and what he was given was Cooper, and those two have never even felt close to the same thing. But things feel different now somehow, like the stars have aligned or something. Or maybe Coop just calmed his ass down. Either way, Blaine loves that they're here and they're talking and that Cooper actually seems to care.
“What about you, after graduation? Are you NYADA bound too?”
“I thought about NYADA, I did,” Blaine takes another mouthful of his soda, “but I don’t think I'll apply.”
“Because of Kurt? 'Cause I don't know him well but I know enough to know he’d hate to see you not realize your dreams because of him.”
“No.,.” Blaine pauses, “I don’t think I'd get in, actually. You should have seen Kurt’s audition, Cooper. He was phenomenal. If he can't make it, I can’t.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit.” And Cooper would know, Blaine thinks, he gives himself more credit than the rest of the world does combined. But he doesn't comment, just shakes his head; Cooper's wrong.
“I do. I know I'm good, I also know I’m probably ten a penny and if Kurt can’t make it, then…besides, I don’t know. Part of me wants to do more than just make art. I want to make a difference, help people... I’ve thought about teaching. Or music therapy.”
“You’re so good, Blainers.” Cooper laughs, knocking his shoulder into Blaine's and holding a hand to his heart.
“Screw you. I mean it though, I want to be more, but then at the same time I don’t - I think about my name in lights and I want that, too.”
“Broadway?”
“Maybe, but I don’t know. I love theatre, I loved playing Tony this year, but I’m a different kind of performer I think. I like being on stage, singing and dancing...” he grins then, and jumps to his feet. “I wanna be a rockstar,” he sings - and he doesn't quite know how he's here, jokingly singing Nickelback on a beach to his brother like he means it. “But all that’s for later. Now is for Kurt, for helping him figure out which way to go.” He drops to his knees in the sand and runs a hand through his hair, still damp from the sea and slightly wild.
“And you’ll just follow him?”
“No, Cooper, I won’t just follow him. The decisions we make are ours based on what we both want, me and him. I don’t know what it is that people don’t get: Kurt and me are equals. It’s not about him leading and me following and I am sick of you and everyone else implying I don’t have a mind of my own when it comes to him, that I’d make decisions that will shape my entire future based just on what Kurt wants. Why the hell can you not give me a bit more credit than that? And why the hell can you not accept that Kurt and I aren’t just messing around here? What we have together, it’s for keeps.”
“You need to relax.” Cooper holds out his hands, palms up. “I just worry about you. It’s my job. You're Kurt’s biggest cheerleader, Squirt, and that’s amazing. But who’s yours?”
And Blaine remembers a role that Kurt wanted but Blaine got, remembers a vibrant bouquet, remembers “Cough Syrup,” remembers pep talks about Cooper and about his parents, remembers reassurances and promises and brutal honesty. “That’s what you don’t get, Cooper,” Blaine replies, “Kurt is.”
Part B
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine, side Cooper/OC
Spoilers (if any): through Season 4 so far - and any discrepancies are because I wrote this before the season started when so much was still so vague.
Warnings (if any): brief mentions of bullying
Word Count: 20k
Summary: ”This summer is important, important in a dark, looming 'your life will never be the same afterwards' kind of way - every fiber of his being is telling him he needs to make the most of it, of Kurt. How can he do that if he has to share him, to share him with his stupid well-intentioned-but-still-overbearing brother, and with yet another city that might steal a piece of Kurt's heart?”
A/N: This was initially me thinking, “yeah, I’ll sign up for the Tiny Bang, I might manage 5000 words if I try really hard” and ending up with this 20k word beast that totally got under my skin and refused to end, ever, until I had to refuse to touch the keyboard in order to make the boys shut up.
I couldn’t have done any of this without my amazing beta, insatiablyyours , who took my wafflings and made them pretty and listened to me rant and pointed out my flaws; who seemed to know what I wanted to say even when I couldn’t articulate it properly and managed to turn me into an almost passable American -- I think. If this is anything at all, G, it’s down to you and I will forever drink cocktails in your honour [honor -- do you see what I did there? ;) ]
Title is stolen shamelessly from Gershwin’s “‘Summertime”’ because Gershwin.
Links, if you’re interested to the songs featured in the fic:
Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters
Copacabana
Girls on Film
Summertime
I do not own anything other than an overactive imagination and too many pairs of shoes. You can find me on Tumblr here; come say hello!
: :
One thing you should know about Blaine Anderson is that he loves the summer. He loves the heat and the sunshine and the fact that there’s no school and the fact that he gets to be outdoors. More often than not he's with his boyfriend, who - in the privacy of their own homes - wears significantly fewer layers than he does the rest of the year. Summer is Blaine’s favorite season; even in the run up to Kurt’s graduation, Blaine was making plans for this summer, plans that involved taking advantage of the heat of Ohio and the increased freedom of being 18, not to mention being alone with Kurt and touching and tasting all that bare skin. Blaine loves summer and Blaine has plans. That is the first thing you should know.
Another thing you should know is that Blaine Anderson is a people-pleaser. He always has been and more than likely always will be. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily: he’s not a people-pleaser to the point of being a doormat - he doesn’t let people walk all over him and he has beliefs and values, opinions that he has absolutely no issue expressing and defending... He’d just rather see people happy than not. Unless it’s something really important, nine times out of ten he will back down and avoid confrontation, preferring to just nod and agree rather than get into an argument. Later, he'll usually take his frustrations out on the punching bag. This is how Blaine gets by.
All in all, Blaine likes to think he's pretty amenable. There really aren’t very many things he can think of that he categorically doesn’t want to do.
That said, Blaine doesn’t want to go to LA.
He really doesn’t.
It’s not because it’s Cooper that’s invited them, because he and Cooper have been getting along really well lately, so it’s not that at all - except that maybe it is, because Blaine isn’t an idiot and he knows it takes more than a week, a heartfelt Gotye song and a hug to fix the seven million problems he has with his older brother and he knows the main reason they've been getting along so well is because he has been in Ohio and Cooper has been, well, anywhere that isn’t.
But it’s not entirely because LA is Cooper’s idea. And it’s not because he doesn’t enjoy the idea of spending the summer at the beach in LA because hello, look at his skin please, he was born to tan. And it’s not because when Kurt had read the invitation he’d rolled over and buried his face in Blaine’s pillow and actually squealed. Squealed. And Blaine still doesn’t know whether he had been squealing at Cooper or at LA or at both, he just knows it had made his stomach tighten in that unpleasant way that he associates with always living in Cooper's shadow. And what if one day, now that Kurt has graduated, he leaves Blaine far, far behind?
Blaine’s main reason for not wanting to go to LA is a selfish one: he doesn’t want to share. This summer is important, important in a dark, looming “your life will never be the same afterwards” kind of way - every fiber of his being is telling him he needs to make the most of it, of Kurt. How can he do that if he has to share him, to share him with his stupid well-intentioned-but-still-overbearing brother, and with yet another city that might steal a piece of Kurt's heart? He’s still not quite ok with it, with the prospect of Kurt leaving and Blaine staying and being alone and of course Kurt is being a darling: he holds Blaine's hand and peppers his hair with kisses and whispers promises of always and never into his hair and Blaine believes him, he does. It doesn’t change the fact, though, that in a matter of weeks Kurt will be gone and Blaine won’t get to see him, to touch him every day; he will have to wait to tell Kurt things; he'll be in a place where his boyfriend is not (and he transferred schools because he couldn’t stand to be apart from the person he loved). He is absolutely petrified.
Blaine wishes, kind of, that he’d been the one to read the text from Coop and that he’d been able to delete it and never mention it to Kurt. Then they could spend the summer lounging in the Hudson/Hummels' garden, drinking Carole’s iced tea and not caring about anybody but each other - except that Blaine doesn’t have that kind of luck.
It had been Kurt who had read the message, because he’d taken to asking Blaine to read Kurt's texts aloud rather than passing over his phone; no matter how many times Blaine has said it’s fine, Kurt still feels guilty about the Chandler debacle earlier this year, feels like he has something to prove, feels that Blaine needs reassuring.
"Honestly Blaine, I just want you to know that I have nothing to hide, not now, not ever, and there is nothing on my phone that I wouldn’t want you to see.”
This meant, of course, that Blaine had to do the same - Sebastian had come before Chandler and even though Kurt insisted that he didn’t care about that now, that Sebastian was history and Blaine had nothing to prove anyway, Blaine knew that he kind of did. So when his phone beeped and Kurt had glanced over and said, “It’s Coop,” the only option Blaine had had, really, was to reply and ask, “What’s it say?”
Of course what it said, roughly, was, “You two are coming to visit because I’m Cooper Anderson and I'm your big bro which means I know best, Blainey, and this may be phrased like an open-ended invitation but I suggest you consider it non-negotiable: why don’t you and Kurt come visit?” Kurt hadn’t been able to read the text aloud fast enough, and then he’d done the whole face-in-pillow squealing thing. When Kurt had finally looked up his face had been all flushed and his eyes had been shining in a way they hadn’t since that day and Blaine had known in that second that he was screwed.
“LA, Blaine.”
“Yes.” Blaine had nodded his head slowly and a little unsurely, because this was Kurt and he was so excited and it would be awesome to go away, just the two of them. No adult supervision apart from Cooper, obviously, but he hardly behaved like an adult - Blaine doubted he had ever supervised anything in his life. But then, this was well and truly Cooper, with no buffers like Mom or Dad or even Mr. Schuester, and Blaine’s relationship with him was nothing if not tenacious. And Blaine had dreamt up those plans for this summer, plans that absolutely did not involve Cooper or LA or not having Kurt pretty much all to himself.
"LA, Blaine."
“Yes.” It wasn’t tentative at all the second time, it was just “yes” because God, what other answer was there when Kurt was looking at him like that?
And then Kurt had reached out and grabbed him by the wrist, tugging him down onto the bed and pushing his henley up, his long fingers pressing hard into the small of Blaine’s back, kissing him hungrily, desperately. Blaine had tried not to focus on the fact that he was getting laid off the back of his brother being “so handsome and good”; to just go with it. Afterwards, when Kurt had laid curled into him, his hand curled loosely round Blaine’s bicep and his breath ghosting across his chest, Kurt had whispered it reverently into the afterglow: “LA, Blaine.”
And it’s not just because of the blowjob - although Kurt is amazing at giving head - but it’s because Blaine wants to give Kurt everything; because Kurt deserves it; because Blaine remembers “I want my senior year to be magical” and it’s like a punch to the gut - it makes histhroat hurt every time.
A vacation to Los Angeles isn’t going to make it all better, won’t make up for the fact that Kurt’s senior year was less magic and more ridicule, not only from his peers but even from the faculty: “Hummel’s too much of a lady,” “Porcelina,” and so much more; some bastard going after Kurt with a doctored slushie - fair enough, Blaine had been the one to be almost blinded but it had been meant for Kurt -; losing the election; and everything with Karofsky, just knockback after knockback after soul-destroying knockback...
Of course, not getting into NYADA wasn’t a total disaster: Kurt actually had a back-up plan and a choice of colleges between which he spent the back end of his senior year debating, because he’s Kurt Hummel and anybody that thought he wouldn’t have had plans A through Z clearly knows him not at all. But all the security in the world doesn’t begin to make up for the fact that NYADA said no, so if this vacation will ease the sting just a little bit then it’s a no-brainer, really; so Blaine had sighed, picked up his cell, and sent Cooper a curt text in reply: “Yeah. Ok.”
And that had been it. It had spiralled out of Blaine's control then.
What followed was a long and awkward conversation with Burt about how yes they’d be staying with Cooper and yes of course he was a responsible adult - God, Blaine hated lying to Burt Hummel, was still waiting actually for some kind of lightning bolt from the heavens to strike him down - and yes they’d be supervised at all times and yes, Carole, he is the brother from the credit rating advertisement, I only have one and yes of course you think he’s wonderful how is this my life. Carole seemed to have been sold from that moment on; Burt on the other hand had been a tougher nut to crack. Good fortune, then, that Kurt had 18 years of experience doing so.
He had led with the guilt trip: “I just had my dreams snatched cruelly away, I’m heartbroken and I’m lost and don’t you think I need a little change of scenery?” The underlying “since I might not be getting out of here anytime soon and I’m suffocating” had gone unspoken but not unheard. Burt had raised an eyebrow. Kurt had switched quickly to irate because, “I just graduated high school, Dad, I’m not a kid. I’m leaving home any day now and you won’t even let me go on a supervised vacation with my boyfriend.”
Blaine hadn't been able to focus then on how justified Kurt's argument was or wasn't. Couldn't make sense of it through the “any day now” that kept roaring in his ears, until he couldn’t hear anything else, see anything else. It had taken Kurt’s hand squeezing his knee and Kurt's voice gentle in his ear to bring him back.
Blaine still wasn’t sure how he was going to survive without Kurt, wasn’t even sure if he had it in him and he hated himself, hated himself, for the fact that he was so hooked on this boy.
Burt had relented in the end. Blaine had kind of always known he would; something in the tilt of Burt’s head, the look in his eyes suggested he only put up a fight to try and assert some kind of control.
“I’m still your Dad, kid, I still make the rules.”
Except Blaine thought, you love Kurt Hummel and you have to accept that you don’t make any of the rules at all, not really. It was like some kind of fairy magic: they’d walk on hot coals just to see that smile, the one that makes Kurt's eyes crinkle, the one that nobody had seen since they’d sent Rachel off at the train station. Kurt had driven home that day via the ice cream parlor and eaten a sundae bigger than his head, with extra toppings, and then he had totally reorganized his wardrobe. Not that it was one-sided; Kurt would do the same for others, Blaine knew, for him and Burt and Rachel and for any of the people lucky enough to be part of his inner circle, even for Santana. Kurt would do whatever it took to help them, to make their lives easier, to hear them laugh. And Blaine laughed more with Kurt than he had in his life before, ever.
It had been easier convincing Blaine's own parents.
“Cooper invited Kurt and I to stay for a while.”
“Hmm? With him?”
“Yeah. That ok?”
“If you like. Maybe you can talk some sense into him, then - he really doesn’t seem to be using his head when choosing jobs lately; God knows it’s embarrassing when people keep asking if that’s my son advertising credit ratings of all things. He seems to listen to you, Blaine. You be sensible though, you hear? Don’t make us regret trusting you.”
“I won’t.”
“Good. And we’ll be calling him, setting up ground rules. This is not an excuse to go wild, Blaine.”
“Of course not.”
A clap on the back from his father and a soft smile from his mother. Blaine wished his parents cared enough to say no.
Santana had cackled when he’d told her, over coffee at the Lima Bean while Kurt was helping his dad at the garage. Held her sides and thrown her head back and just laughed and laughed. Apparently it was amusing that Blaine was going to be forced to deal with Cooper in his natural habitat. He knew it was only because she’s jealous; she has some weird hetero crush on Cooper (and why is everyone in the world in love with Blaine’s brother?) but still.
Kurt doesn't understand Blaine's friendship with Santana. Blaine tries sometimes to convince Kurt that she's not as caustic as she seems; she's just a scared misunderstood little girl really, hiding behind a jagged front to protect herself in the same way Kurt himself does, to a degree. It makes Blaine wish, privately that he could just fix things, not them so much because they’re not broken but fix…well, the world, really. The world that's given them so much cause to protect themselves.
Kurt just rolls his eyes.
”She's not an armadillo, Blaine.”
Blaine's pretty sure that a lot of Kurt's derision when it comes to Santana is due to his own insecurities, his own defenses against cutting words that he can’t help associating with slushies and dumpsters and being thrown against lockers, even though Santana was never the direct cause of any of those things. So Kurt and Santana aren’t friends in the way Blaine and Santana are, but Blaine knows that Kurt loves her - Blaine knows it viscerally, knows that Kurt helped her pick a prom dress, that Santana played a huge part in making Kurt’s return to McKinley possible. Kurt even proposes they see her outside of school once in a blue moon. Kurt might not understand her but he loves her still, in the way one loves an unbearable sibling.
In the way Blaine loves Cooper.
Blaine knows you can't choose your family; sometimes he wonders how the hell it happened, how he got him as a brother when they have so little in common. He wonders some days whether it might have been better to be an only child or whether he was somehow mistakenly handed to the wrong family at birth, but when it comes down to it, his family are the people that will always (usually) be there on some level - perhaps not always in the way he’d expect or hope - but there all the same, when he needs them. Cooper has always been there for Blaine; sometimes Blaine wishes he wasn’t because he’s Cooper, God, and he makes everything into a production whereas Blaine just likes to keep his head down for the most part at least (unless the occasion calls for theatricality - everything in moderation after all), but deep down he’s glad of his brother's existence.
It’s the same with Santana. Nobody asked her to patrol the corridors so Kurt could go back to McKinley and not live in fear; nobody asked her to show Sebastian what the New Directions were made of after that whole thing with the slushie. She just did it. She did it because the New Directions, they’re a family of sorts and as much as they snipe and catcall and outright hurt each other, the second anybody from the outside so much as looks at them funny, they close ranks. Maybe Blaine wouldn't have advised or supported the violin-off-paired-with-underboob scheme, but just because he disagreed with her strategy doesn't mean he wasn't grateful she was looking out.
: :
After Blaine had sung ”It's Not Right” in glee, Santana had come to him in the Lima Bean, demanded he buy her a coffee and dragged him to a table where she'd looked right at him over the top of her cup, her stare so piercing he'd had to look away.
“Fuck me, Bow Tie, that was some performance,” she'd said.
“I don't want to talk about it.”
She ignored him. “You've got it wrong, you know.”
“You have zero clue what's going on here. And I really don't want to...'”
“It's not rocket science. You think Hummel cheated on you, I'm telling you he didn't. Simple 's that.”
“It's more complicated than you think.”
“Always is, sweet cheeks, but here's the thing: you and Kurt have always been more vomit-inducing than a bottle of skittles vodka. Whatever you think is going on, you've got it wrong. There’s no way he played you.”
“I found texts.”
“And I heard him say you were being ridiculous - I have no idea why it's taken him this long to work that out, you advertise your ridiculousness daily on a bow tie round your neck - but my point is, if he says you're pulling a Berry-esque fit then you probably are.”
Blaine had sighed, looked down at the table feeling his eyes fill with tears again, knowing Santana would never let him live it down if she saw him cry.
“Jesus. It's worse than I thought.” She had reached forward and touched the back of his hand lightly with the tips of her fingers, the contact brief and feather soft before she drew her hand back, leaning back in her seat and folding her arms across her chest. “Look, here's how I see it. As much as it pains me to say, it's pretty clear you and Kurt are the real deal. It's also pretty clear that even though you have a hot as hell voice and you're really angry right now, the lyrics to that song are bullshit. You don't think you'd rather be alone, without Kurt in your life, so man up, stop singing and crying and go talk to your boy. Don't fuck this up.”
: :
Cooper had paid for the plane tickets: open-ended although they’d promised Burt no more than a month and Blaine was leaning towards a week, tops, while trying to ignore Kurt’s dreamy “just think, Blaine, I could be discovered and never come back. I could be Coop’s roommate and win a Golden Globe before Rachel even has time to say Tony.” As if that wasn’t the stuff nightmares were made of. It was a graduation present for Kurt, which was sweet of Coop if a little weird, and it totally outshone Blaine’s monogrammed towels, which he’d put a lot of thought into, dammit. Nevertheless, it wasn't Cooper who had spent days of early June curled on Kurt’s bed with his feet tucked under him, surrounded by sweaters and scarves and pants and shorts and t-shirts and hats (how does Kurt manage to look hot in everything he ever tries on ever, really?) while Kurt had tossed outfit after outfit aside, trying to mix and match. He'd ended up with his fingers pressed to his temples, his eyes closed.
“This is a disaster, Blaine. My wardrobe is not designed for Los Angeles.”
It had been up to Blaine to calm him down with kisses and gentle words; to help him take a step back and regroup; to nod his head encouragingly at each item Kurt lovingly placed into his case and to slowly convince him all over again that LA was a fabulous idea and they’d be fabulous, making memories they’d treasure forever. That of course they wouldn’t be better here in Lima, Kurt, in your back garden where your wardrobe works perfectly... and there Kurt was working that freaking magic again.
On the day they're to travel west, they meet at the airport, stupidly early in the morning. Kurt’s wearing long grey shorts and an ice blue boat-necked t-shirt and Blaine can see his collarbone - is everybody's collarbone as delectable as Kurt's? This flight is going to be hell because Blaine already wants every stitch of clothing off him, like, now. Blaine doesn’t think he’s ever seen Kurt look so casual outside of booty camp or his own house. Or as hot. He can’t stop staring. Through the goodbyes and the hugs and the promises to behave and the “I’m 18, Dad, not 8”s, Blaine can’t take his eyes off Kurt and Kurt turns to him when they are finally, finally alone and quirks an eyebrow.
“What?” Kurt asks, nonchalant.
“I’m just thinking.” Blaine shrugs.
“About what?” He takes a step closer and Blaine thinks he probably already knows.
“I’m wondering,” he says with a smile, flicking his eyes to Kurt’s and then away again, “whether all the people in all the world who have boyfriends are driven to distraction by how hot said boyfriends are. I mean, I can’t even remember my name when I’m around you, Kurt. Is that how it is for everyone? Is that, like, a thing?” He gestures round the airport, his stomach dipping at the pleased and slightly smug smile on Kurt’s face.
“Statistically,” Kurt replies, stepping closer again, “I’m going to say yes.”
“'Statistically'?”
“I took a brief poll,” and it’s Blaine’s turn to raise an eyebrow now, “and the results were unanimous actually. Being distracted to the point of insanity by one’s incredibly hot boyfriend is indeed, a 'thing.'”
“Oh really?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“And just how many people took part in this poll, exactly?”
“Oh,” Kurt says airily, reaching down for the messenger bag that’s been resting against his calf and slinging it easily over his shoulder as their final boarding call is announced, “Just two."
He turns and heads towards the gate with a look in his eyes that says “come the fuck on, Blaine” and with a small smile that's right out of Bridget Jones. And Blaine wants to catch him, to grab him by that perfect face and just kiss him 'til he can’t breathe and sometimes he just hates Ohio and the fact that he can’t do that.
Maybe LA won’t be so bad after all.
: :
Cooper is waiting for them at Arrivals, just like he’d said he would be. Slightly back from the pressing crowds waiting for loved ones, leaning casually against a wall and holding up a piece of cardboard with “Paging Blainers” scrawled across it in thick, black, block capitals. He has one ankle crossed over the other, his lips quirked in a smirk, his eyes shielded by dark sunglasses. Ray-Bans. Inside. Blaine feels his heart rate increase just a little because that’s his brother and despite the sunglasses and the sign he can’t help it: he’s missed him.
“Only Coop,” Blaine mutters to Kurt, pointing in Cooper's general direction and then raising his arm in a wave that his brother doesn’t return. “Only Coop would believe he actually pulls off shades indoors.”
“Probably trying to hide from the paparazzi, darling,” Kurt drawls, grabbing Blaine by the hand because they’re not in Lima anymore, Toto, and he feels like he can. Blaine grins. He can’t help it. Something shifted in him on the plane, his forehead pressed to the window and Kurt asleep on his shoulder, snuffling quietly. Somehow LA doesn’t feel anymore like Cooper is trying simultaneously to annoy him and outshine him, or like a big shiny city is trying to infringe on his time with Kurt. Instead it feels like an adventure, an opportunity, another first he can cross off his list with Kurt by his side. It feels like sunshine and movie stars and Kurt’s hand in his whenever, wherever, however - despite himself, Blaine is excited. He lets Kurt pull him through all the people, the crowd parting (or so it feels) to let two boys and too much luggage pass until they come to a stop. Kurt lets go of his case - but not of Blaine - and grins.
“Hey,” Kurt says, practically bouncing with excitement, and Blaine just wants to kiss him. He always wants to.
Cooper straightens up then, smiles his easy, white-toothed smile, and waves his homemade sign at them, practically shoving it in Blaine’s face as he pulls Kurt into a one-armed hug.
“Kurt! Well done. You know, for finishing school.”
Blaine rolls his eyes, grabbing the sign and huffing out a laugh, and then Kurt’s straightening his shirt and pretending to not even be just a little bit ruffled that Cooper Anderson just hugged him. Blaine is just thinking how adorable that is when Cooper wraps him up in his arms, squeezing tight, lifting him off the ground and spinning him around.
“You know what I love about you most, Squirt? That you’ll never be too big for me to do this.”
Blaine can’t even bring himself to be pissed at the overdone dig at his height or the hated nickname because Cooper’s laughing and Kurt’s laughing and Blaine is pretty sure he can smell the ocean from right there in LAX.
“Put me down, Cooper, God.”
Cooper gives him a final spin before setting him down on his feet and grabbing their cases. “Come on then, boys and boys. Let’s get out of here.”
He’s renting an apartment in Santa Monica, he tells them as they head for the parking lot, and Kurt squeezes Blaine’s hand in excitement. Santa Monica.
Blaine wonders if the urge to roll his eyes every time his brother opens his mouth will ever dissipate.
It's a summer rental because Cooper’s taking a break from work, which Blaine thinks is clearly code for “there is a serious shortage of call-backs,” but it’s only a 30 minute drive from the airport and a 30 minute drive from "the town” (which Blaine assumes means Hollywood). Cooper’s already got plans to show the boys all the sights and he might have to work next week, (“There’s this fantastic pilot, Blaine, this could be my big break…can’t you just imagine me as a dDoctor?” Honestly, Blaine really can’t; the very thought terrifies him, but he does hope this is his brother’s big break) but he’s sure he can get both boys on set - they’re hardly going to say no to him, after all. His place is right by the beach so they can play volleyball (“...like we did when we were kids, Blainers. I’m pretty sure I can still kick your ass,” “I’m pretty sure you can, Coop, if you still cheat.”) and maybe surf and there are some awesome bars (“You guys do have cards? Do not tell the ‘rentals I asked you that, Blaine. What happens in Hollywood stays in Hollywood,” he'd said as he held out a fist to be bumped) - Blaine has to admit it sounds like fun. Kurt just seems to be in a daze as he listens, looking at Cooper in awe and hand still clasping Blaine's tightly. It makes Blaine laugh because witnessing Cooper Anderson at full speed for the first time is nothing if not exhausting.
“How do you actually breathe?” Kurt asks when Cooper finally stops talking. Cooper just grins, and shrugs and gestures grandly.
“Your carriage awaits,” he says.
“This is your car?” Kurt says exactly what Blaine was thinking. Blaine would proudly put it down to the two of them being totally in-tune normally except that even a blind person would be surprised to find Cooper pointing a car key at a grimy convertible jeep with “bite me” written in the dirt on its trunk and some kind of prayer beads hanging from the rearview mirror. Cooper rolls his eyes.
“No, this is Margo's car. My car wouldn't hold all your shit.”
“Who's...”
“Get in.” Cooper pulls open the passenger door and bows to Kurt. “You're in the back, B, since Kurt's a guest.”
Technically, Blaine thinks, he's a guest too, but he is nothing if not chivalrous and at least if he's in the back he can concentrate on the way Kurt's hair curls at the nape of his neck and not on Cooper's driving. He still doesn't actually know how his brother got a license; Blaine suspects it was downloaded off the Internet.
“I'm sorry you didn’t get into NYADA, Kurt,” Cooper says once they're on the road. Blaine sees Kurt stiffen a little, his shoulders tensing; he thinks he can see the set of Kurt's jaw even from behind. A part of him wants to interject but it's bound to come up again and maybe it's best to get it out of the way now. He settles for reaching forward and squeezing Kurt's shoulder gently.
“Yeah,” Kurt says, softly. “Me too.” It's his standard answer now the pain has dulled a little and the reality has set in. He saves the tears, what he calls the “histrionics,” for when it's just him and Blaine. Blaine is so proud of his dignity and his courage; to think he ever tried to advise Kurt on courage, it seems laughable when he looks at the man his boyfriend has become: accepting the NYADA rejection with his head held high even though everybody who heard his audition knows he deserved it, gracefully accepting condolences, exchanging excited texts with Rachel even as she prepares to live out his dream. Blaine finds something new about Kurt to captivate him every single day.
“I’m sure you don’t want to talk about it,” Cooper continues, “but don’t give up hope. I mean, look at me. Oh, that reminds me.” He reaches behind himself into the backseat, grabbing at an envelope that rests on the seat next to Blaine’s thigh. “I got you something; call it moral support or something.”
He hands the envelope to Kurt, who opens it quizzically, looking over his shoulder at Blaine, who just shrugs. He has no idea.
“Oh my God, Cooper.” It’s Blaine that speaks, his chin resting on the back of Kurt’s seat, eyes widening in horror as Kurt pulls from the envelope a headshot of Cooper. Signed and dedicated: “To Kurt - Never give up. Love, Cooper Anderson.”
“Are you being serious right now?”
“Blaine,” Kurt chastises him, but Blaine can tell from his tone that he’s swallowing down a laugh. “Thank you, Cooper, that’s very…sweet. I’ll make sure to place it somewhere prominent so I can draw from it whenever I do in fact feel like giving up.”
He taps the photo with his forefinger before sliding it back into his envelope, and Blaine falls back into his seat with a groan, covering his eyes with his hands and wondering just how open-ended their tickets are - as in, could they realistically get on a plane home within the next hour?
“Well yes,” Cooper is still speaking, “I know you probably felt a bit uncomfortable about wanting to ask for an autograph during my time teaching at McKinley, when I was signing for your buds...” and seriously, Blaine thinks, he’s probably put that train wreck of a week down on his resumé as “drama teacher.”
“...Because of our mutual connection to Blaine and all, so this felt like the ideal way of showing my support. Anything you need, Kurt: advice, contacts, anything at all, you only have to ask. If you’re as much of a keeper as Blaine says you are, then I plan to have your back.”
And he’s so damn earnest that Blaine wants to hug him as much as he wants to maim him.
: :
Margo, it turns out, is Cooper's girlfriend. The second he lays eyes on her Blaine wants to bundle her up, take her back to Ohio and present her to his parents: “Mom, Dad, you think it sucks that I'm gay? This is who Cooper's dating.” Not because he thinks he’s not going to like her, she looks awesome, but because his parents are so guilty of judging books by covers. The frustrated little brother in him can’t help but cling to whatever little thing might make Cooper less than perfect and so in turn might make Blaine less than the disappointing son. Sometimes he just wants to be able to stand in front of them and say, “Look, see, it’s not just me that’s refusing to conform to your stupid expectations.” It’s kind of vindictive, Blaine knows it is, but he’s spent a lifetime trying to measure up and there’s times you just have to take what you can get.
She's beautiful, there's no denying it; she also has bright pink streaks in her short black hair and a nose ring and a tattoo across her collarbone that must have killed - she is so far away from Cooper's type that Blaine wonders if they disembarked the plane in a parallel universe. She's wearing a floaty linen skirt and a strappy top and each of her fingernails is painted a different color and as she leans in to kiss Blaine on the cheek he gets a not-altogether-unpleasant whiff of tobacco and liquorice.
Her voice is soft and warm. “Hey you guys, we're so glad you're here.”
“Your brother,” Kurt mutters quietly enough that only Blaine can hear, “is dating Quinn Fabray circa early senior year.”
“Right?” Blaine mutters back before they both fix Margo with their best Dalton full-wattage smiles and accept the ice cold lemonade - but not the cigarettes - and collapse onto the sofa while Cooper brings their bags in from the jeep. Margo is a poet slash bartender: poet for the love of it and bartender for the cash. She's been dating Cooper since last summer. A whole year; Blaine is amazed. Her favorite film is Fight Club, her favorite book Fear and Loathing and she's seen Wicked seven times, twice on Broadway. Kurt is in love with her in five minutes flat; he tells her that her ”fashion choices” would have labeled her a “skank” in Lima, but that she can be the Elphaba to his Glinda if she wants, and Blaine thinks her laugh in response is his second favorite of all laughs ever.
By the time Cooper has brought the last bag from the car, the lemonade is finished, Blaine is on the sofa with his feet curled beneath him, Kurt is singing “Popular” at Margo and Margo is still laughing and declaring Kurt to be “all kinds of awesome.”
“I know I said to make yourselves at home guys, but shit.”
Margo reaches for Cooper, who stands in the lounge looking bemused. She tugs him down to sit beside her, still laughing as Kurt stops singing and pretends to be affronted at the interruption. “Coop,” she says, “your brother and his boy are just precious. Can we keep them?”
: :
It's possibly the best vacation he's been on, Blaine decides three days in. He is so glad they came to LA, so glad for Cooper and who thought he'd ever be saying that. Cooper has been true to his word and they've seen more sights so far this week than Kurt says he's seen in his life. Blaine's used to it: an overdose of culture is par for the course when you're an Anderson, but Kurt hasn't seen much of the world outside of Ohio and he is lapping it up, demanding an itinerary off Cooper each evening and researching extensively, long fingers tapping quickly at the screen of Blaine's iPad before finally pulling outfits from the closet, each day's clothes coordinated perfectly with the agenda. Blaine's clothes still lie in his case because despite Kurt's best bitch face, Blaine is on vacation and why waste precious time packing and unpacking, God.
They've already done the double decker bus tour, complete with Cooper acting as tour guide and Kurt pretending to grumble about the wind in his hair as he gripped Blaine's knee in excitement. Kurt didn't even complain when Blaine managed to get him in pretty much every photograph he shot - and there were a lot of photographs: Blaine is not an amateur photographer in name only, thank you very much.
They saw the Hollywood sign and Grauman's Chinese Theatre and Blaine put his hands in Johnny Depp's prints on the Walk of Fame.
“My hands have been where his hands have been. I'm never washing again.”
“His hands and the hands of 70 million other people who probably don't wash after using the bathroom.”
“Johnny Depp, Kurt.”
“Basic hygiene, Blaine,” Kurt had said, squeezing a generous dollop of hand sanitizer into Blaine's reluctantly upturned palms.
“You guys are so married," Margo had said fondly. Kurt had flushed while Blaine just grinned.
It's Margo's idea to stay in and relax that night. It's been three days of nonstop action and Blaine is glad for the chance to pull on his sweats and sit curled into Kurt's side, sharing take-out from the box and drinking a beer. He feels warm and fuzzy; Kurt is at the same time solid and soft beside him and it feels different somehow to all the times they've been comfy like this at home. It's as though in just three days Kurt has managed to wash away the grime of Ohio to reveal a brighter version of himself: more ready to laugh, with the same quick wit but with less bite. His movements are as graceful as ever but somehow more fluid; he's mesmerizing and Blaine is mesmerized, always. He's wrapping Blaine's hair around his fingers now as they eat and drink and talk. Blaine is fresh from the shower and his hair is damp and gel-free. Kurt is making the most of it: each tug of a curl serves as a reminder that Kurt loves him wholly - bushy-haired or not, Kurt loves him.
Margo is asking how long they've been together and Kurt smiles. “Longer than you two.”
And Blaine can't help but feel a little smug at that; it's ingrained, the need to always compete with his brother, to make the most of the times when he comes out on top.
“First love?” Margo asks and they answer together, a quiet “yes,” a shared smile and then Kurt says,
”He was mine at least.”
Coop leans forward as though he can smell a story. “What, Kurt isn't your first love, brother?”
“Of course he is, first and only.” He looks up at Kurt. “You are.”
Kurt raises an eyebrow and turns to Cooper and Margo, eyes alive with mischief. “I have two words for you: Gap. Attack.” Kurt pops the cap off another beer bottle as he tells the story, embellished a little for dramatic effect and illustrated by song. It is of course the line about leaving toys in drawers that he chooses to sing to make his point, jumping to his feet and playing Blaine to Margo's Jeremiah, his every expression exaggerated. Soon enough, Blaine is groaning and hushing him and defending Jeremiah's hair (because it wasn't that bad). When Kurt finally drops back down beside him they're all breathless with laughter. Cooper shakes his head.
“Oh Blainers.”
“Don't even!” Blaine is still laughing as he holds a finger in the air, a mock stern look on his face, his eyes twinkling as he looks from his brother to his boyfriend. “Don't. And if we're oversharing,” he grins, “Kurt was in love with his brother.”
“Kurt!” Margo is a combination of scandalized and delighted.
“Stepbrother, Blaine, and he wasn't even that at the time, God. I hate you.”
“You love me.”
“I do.” Kurt’s smiling, his voice full of barely suppressed laughter, and his eyes when he looks at Blaine are so soft and full of love that it makes Blaine’s breath catch. There is nothing, Blaine thinks, that will ever compare to loving and being loved by this boy.
: :
California is good for Kurt. This surprises Blaine because it’s Kurt and he likens himself to porcelain and he’s all layers and scarves and Broadway and culture. Kurt’s a boy meant for the city streets but somehow, here, he’s something else entirely. He’s slightly tan - and oh my God, that’s hot - and a little freckled, also hot. He’s showing more skin than Blaine has ever known him to show in public: long shorts, bare feet, thin t-shirts. He’s got slightly mussed hair, he smells like coconut and tastes like sunscreen, and he’s carefree - scrunched-up nose and that smile that shows his canines and the long lines of his neck are elongated as he throws his head back to laugh. And it’s like every time he moves Blaine just wants to do him, hard.
It’s like he’s left the Kurt Hummel whom NYADA rejected back in Lima, Ohio - the one he brought on vacation is just Kurt and Blaine loves this, loves him.
They sit on the beach: Blaine lays back with his head rested on Kurt’s thigh and Kurt scoops handfuls of sand, letting the grains trickle slowly through his fingers as he talks to Margo and Cooper surfs; he is but a tiny dot in the crashing waves (“I know it probably looks effortless, but a body this good? It takes work.”) It strikes Blaine now that Kurt needed this more than anybody ever realized; Blaine is so glad they came because he’s been feeling so helpless in the wake of that letter. For weeks he’s been unable to say much other than “it’s so unfair” and “you killed that audition, Kurt” and “I don’t understand how this happened” - all of which is incredibly useless and probably quite patronizing because it has happened after all and all the fucking indignation in the world won’t change that. He’s been unable to do anything other than viciously defend Kurt’s talents and hold him while he cries; listen while he rants and tell him every single day how loved he is. None of it has felt like enough, like anything, until now.
Blaine picked up snatches of conversation during their first night here while laying down in the living room in that weird slightly tipsy half-awake state, face down on the rug that Kurt thinks Margo probably made herself, half-listening while the two of them talked. He’s had this conversation with Kurt so many times since the NYADA letter came; they’ve gone forwards and backwards, looking at it from countless different angles. Blaine is happy to continue doing so for as long as Kurt needs. This was the first time, though, that he heard Kurt let it all out to somebody other than him. It was different somehow, being on the outside of the conversation and listening in; listening to Kurt bare his soul to this girl he hardly knew. He heard how Kurt was devastated, how Tibideaux had built him up and knocked him down and isn’t that just unnecessary and cruel? How it hurt more than anything because he’d let himself believe, and what now? All Kurt had been able to think was how anything else could be any good if it wasn't that. Blaine’s heart had clenched in his chest and he’d forced himself awake and up - he’d grabbed Kurt’s face in his hands and just kissed him, trying to convey through actions what he still didn’t have the words to say.
But now it’s different. Now they’re on the beach in the afternoon, not at the apartment at night, and they’re sober and Kurt is talking to Margo again. Blaine hears how the sunshine feels like a tonic and he hears “my brother” and “my best friend” and how Kurt wouldn’t trade places with Rachel for anything, ever, not ever - he’s so vicious when he says it that Blaine raises his eyebrows in surprise, doesn’t open his eyes but smiles a little as Kurt’s fingers continue to card through his hair. Kurt says, “She might have NYADA but she doesn’t have Finn and being here, with you, with Blaine like this. God, NYADA’s just, well, it’s nothing - you know, not next to him.” Blaine reaches up, grabbing Kurt’s hand and bringing it to his lips, pressing a kiss to his palm and closing his fingers around it. Saying without saying, “I’m here and I love you, too.”
“Volleyball,” Cooper announces, (disturbing the peace, Blaine notes, as usual). Blaine opens his eyes to see Cooper shaking saltwater from his hair like some kind of over-enthusiastic dog and is just about to open his mouth and retort when there are hands grabbing his ankles and dragging him across the sand. “Come on Blaine, no time for sitting on your ass.”
“Get the hell off of me, Coop!” Blaine yells; his brother is a dick. He tries to wriggle free and fails miserably. “And who made you Dad anyway? We’re on vacation and we’ll sit on our asses if we please.”
“But Blainers.” Cooper lets go of his ankles but he moves fast - before Blaine has had time to really register that he’s free, Cooper is straddling his chest, pinning him into the sand. “Team sports,” he breathes, “It’s the Anderson way.”
“Get the hell off me,” Blaine repeats, lifting his hips and bending his knees and then they’re rolling around, all arms and legs and fuck that was Cooper’s teeth. He always did play dirty. A scuffle of Andersons on a Santa Monica beach; Blaine can hear Kurt and Margo laughing in the background and he is silently clapping himself on the back for taking up boxing because he might be small but he’s strong and he’s fast. He wriggles free, pushing Cooper away 'til they’re both laid side by side on their backs, gasping for breath.
“Is it bad...” Kurt asks, “that I thought that was really hot?” All Blaine can do is feebly flip him off.
There’s a bit of a disagreement over teams. Blaine says Andersons vs. Newcomers but Kurt says that’s hardly fair since Coop and Blaine have a lifetime of practice. Cooper suggests Kurt joins him to play vs. Blaine and Margo but Blaine’s having none of that because, “on what planet is it even remotely fair to pitch the people of over average height against Margo and me?”
They toss a coin for it in the end and Blaine ends up teamed with Kurt. Which seems fine - and if he's honest, it's what he'd been angling for all along - except they’re ten minutes into the game before he realizes he should've just let Cooper make the decision in the first place; whatever team Blaine ended up on would have lost. They’re being annihilated because Kurt is just picking it up to serve and Blaine is already distracted.
Distracted by Kurt.
Kurt and his long legs and his bare feet and the trickle of sweat that’s running down the back of his neck and the way he runs his hand through his hair... and the way that when someone calls time-out and he thinks no one's looking, he lifts up the hem of his t-shirt to wipe sweat from his face and oh my fucking God Blaine is turned on right now. This is Kurt like he's never seen him: he’s all toned and sweaty and masculine, but more than anything he's loose and Blaine wants to push him down into the sand and lick the sweat off him and just rut against him, like, forever.
: :
Blaine wakes before Kurt the morning of the fifth day, which is unheard of, really, because Kurt is Kurt and Blaine is Blaine; while Kurt likes to make the most of every single day, Blaine believes his bed is his best friend second only to Kurt. He lays for a while in the semi-darkness, listening to the soft rise and fall of Kurt’s breathing, tries to fall back asleep but can’t. He shifts a little and hears someone moving around in the kitchen, detects the faint but unmistakeable smell of fresh coffee. Kurt’s rolled over in the night and he’s laid on his front now, one arm slung across Blaine’s bare middle. Blaine lifts it gently to slide out from beneath it, pressing a kiss gently to the back of Kurt’s hand before placing it back down and sliding himself slowly from the bed. Kurt snuffles at the disturbance and Blaine freezes, not wanting to wake him just yet, but Kurt just snuggles a little further under the sheets, Blaine watches him for a moment and it’s so tempting to lean in, to press his lips and just maybe his tongue to the expanse of Kurt’s skin, flushed and warm where it lays against the white sheets, kissing him all over, kissing him slowly awake; except he looks so peaceful that to wake him - even with kisses - would be unfair.
He grins and wonders if this is why Kurt has been in such a good mood every morning so far: because he’s woken up to this, to Blaine naked and asleep in their bed and he's imagined a future where this is just what happens, where they wake up together every single morning. Just the notion of it makes Blaine want to dance; instead, he grabs his pajama pants from the floor and slips quietly out of the room.
“Oh good.” Cooper is leaning against the island in the kitchen when Blaine pads through, rubbing sleep from his eyes and yawning. He has a mug of coffee in his hand and he pours another from the cafetière, which Blaine takes with a grateful smile as he lifts himself onto a stool, wondering why it is that everyone but him seems to be a morning person. “I was about to wake you,” Cooper says, “The grand plan for today...” Cooper drumrolls his fingertips on the countertop and Blaine grins sleepily, “is surfing.”
Blaine shakes his head. “Oh, I dunno, Coop. I mean I can’t and I don’t think Kurt...”
“Kurt’s not invited,” Cooper says simply, “and I’m going to teach you. That’s the point.”
“But Kurt…”
“Will be fine on his own for one day. Margo’s around, and Kurt strikes me as the independent type anyway. I’m sure he can keep himself entertained.”
Blaine wants to argue, wonders whether he should because this was supposed to be his and Kurt’s vacation together - but Cooper looks so excited, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet, already dressed in board shorts and a rash guard and Blaine's always wanted to surf... He takes a mouthful of his coffee and shrugs his shoulders. “Yeah, ok. Cool.”
He makes Cooper take a photo of him at the beach once he’s zipped into his wetsuit. Ignoring his brother’s mocking “Jesus, you seriously have the itsy bitsiest waist, baby brother” and grinning wildly at his phone, Blaine quickly fires off a picture message knowing that Kurt will appreciate the way the heavy black fabric clings everywhere it touches. He’s right - the reply is practically instantaneous: “come back, right now. the apartment is empty and sea water is bad for your skin. <3”
“It’s shit what happened to Kurt with NYADA,” Cooper states when he finally agrees they can stop to rest, pulling the ring on a can of coke he’d had the sense to stash in a duffel bag. He takes a long mouthful. Blaine nods, because it is shit and there’s not a lot more to say than that.
“He seems like he’ll be ok though?” Cooper asks and Blaine nods again.
“He will be,” he says confidently, “I don’t think he’s quite figured out what he’s going to do yet, but he has options and he’ll be fabulous no matter what he decides.”
“He still planning on going to the Big Apple?”
“Yeah. That’s the one part of the plan that’s never been up for debate. Kurt’ll be in New York by the end of summer come hell or high water. Although he might be considering LA as a viable alternative right now.” He gives Cooper a mock glare, hopes he’s pitched his tone lightly enough - apparently not, as Cooper raises an eyebrow.
“And you’re cool with that? With him leaving?”
He shrugs and Coop kicks at him, demanding an answer. Blaine sighs and lies back, looking up at the blue sky as though somewhere, where there should be clouds he’ll find answers instead.
“I think so? Except, no. When he didn’t get into NYADA, a horrible little part of me hoped it’d make him stay. I hate myself for it, but I've always hated the thought of him leaving. I’m not sure I can existwithout him.” He chances a glance at Cooper. “Don’t look at me like that. I know it’s a dick thing to even think but you don’t know; it got bad for a while. We almost broke up.”
“But you didn’t and he’s still going, so how’d you fix it?”
“We’re in show choir and it was Whitney week,” Blaine says dryly, “How do you think?”
Cooper laughs and Blaine grins back, so happy right in this moment that he could burst with it; it's so easy, so nice, being here with Cooper like this, hanging out and just talking. Sometimes Blaine feels like he was a little ripped off; he was promised a big brother and what he was given was Cooper, and those two have never even felt close to the same thing. But things feel different now somehow, like the stars have aligned or something. Or maybe Coop just calmed his ass down. Either way, Blaine loves that they're here and they're talking and that Cooper actually seems to care.
“What about you, after graduation? Are you NYADA bound too?”
“I thought about NYADA, I did,” Blaine takes another mouthful of his soda, “but I don’t think I'll apply.”
“Because of Kurt? 'Cause I don't know him well but I know enough to know he’d hate to see you not realize your dreams because of him.”
“No.,.” Blaine pauses, “I don’t think I'd get in, actually. You should have seen Kurt’s audition, Cooper. He was phenomenal. If he can't make it, I can’t.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit.” And Cooper would know, Blaine thinks, he gives himself more credit than the rest of the world does combined. But he doesn't comment, just shakes his head; Cooper's wrong.
“I do. I know I'm good, I also know I’m probably ten a penny and if Kurt can’t make it, then…besides, I don’t know. Part of me wants to do more than just make art. I want to make a difference, help people... I’ve thought about teaching. Or music therapy.”
“You’re so good, Blainers.” Cooper laughs, knocking his shoulder into Blaine's and holding a hand to his heart.
“Screw you. I mean it though, I want to be more, but then at the same time I don’t - I think about my name in lights and I want that, too.”
“Broadway?”
“Maybe, but I don’t know. I love theatre, I loved playing Tony this year, but I’m a different kind of performer I think. I like being on stage, singing and dancing...” he grins then, and jumps to his feet. “I wanna be a rockstar,” he sings - and he doesn't quite know how he's here, jokingly singing Nickelback on a beach to his brother like he means it. “But all that’s for later. Now is for Kurt, for helping him figure out which way to go.” He drops to his knees in the sand and runs a hand through his hair, still damp from the sea and slightly wild.
“And you’ll just follow him?”
“No, Cooper, I won’t just follow him. The decisions we make are ours based on what we both want, me and him. I don’t know what it is that people don’t get: Kurt and me are equals. It’s not about him leading and me following and I am sick of you and everyone else implying I don’t have a mind of my own when it comes to him, that I’d make decisions that will shape my entire future based just on what Kurt wants. Why the hell can you not give me a bit more credit than that? And why the hell can you not accept that Kurt and I aren’t just messing around here? What we have together, it’s for keeps.”
“You need to relax.” Cooper holds out his hands, palms up. “I just worry about you. It’s my job. You're Kurt’s biggest cheerleader, Squirt, and that’s amazing. But who’s yours?”
And Blaine remembers a role that Kurt wanted but Blaine got, remembers a vibrant bouquet, remembers “Cough Syrup,” remembers pep talks about Cooper and about his parents, remembers reassurances and promises and brutal honesty. “That’s what you don’t get, Cooper,” Blaine replies, “Kurt is.”
Part B