hard to control; glee
Kurt likes Sam's hands.
They're big like Blaine's were, but maybe not as neat. His fingers are crooked, the nails are bluntly cut down as far as they'll go, and the tips are rough with calluses from Sam-things like plucking coppery guitar strings and squeezing Xbox controllers and unhooking girls' bras because he's straight.
Sweet, straight Sam Evans who holds his hand on the way to glee club just to feed some lie Kurt didn't think out. Just because he's an impossibly nice guy.
And that's fine. In glee, Sam will sit beside him with one of the band guy's guitars slung over his shoulders and play the Super Mario theme to him with this dorky big grin on his face, like he does every day. Sometimes they'll sit by the piano and Kurt will play along, and sometimes he gets too caught up in the happy crinkles of Sam's eyes to check Blaine's reaction. Then Mr Schuester will come in, and while he talks Sam will make weird faces, whisper in funny voices, and sometimes forget he's trying to make Kurt laugh and just glance at him occasionally with this almost anxious smile on his face.
Sam will make the same jokes as he does every day with just as much enthusiasm and whenever he's quiet, Kurt will look at his rough, crooked hands and think of how much warmer they feel held in his than Blaine's ever did.
-
Blaine stops him again. Luckily, this time he stops Sam, too.
He opens his mouth, pauses, shakes his head and tries again with a tight smile on his face. Kurt feels Sam’s fingertips move towards him, dragging down the back of his palm like a wordless signal. If he wants to leave, he will, Kurt thinks, but Blaine looks so awkward and small then and it isn’t in him just to walk away.
“I asked Sebastian,” he finally says, and at that Sam’s fingers reach out and wrap tightly around his. Blaine doesn’t notice, looking up almost eagerly into both of their faces. “About the four of us - hanging out.”
‘Double date’ was Kurt’s chosen phrasing, but he’s too busy trying to contain his inner horror at where the end of this conversation could lead them to notice the difference. He stands, stricken, staring at Blaine with his limp hand clutched in Sam’s and suddenly remembering his past penchant for putting Kurt in awful, hostile situations with Sebastian, his least favourite member of the rodent family.
“So, how about Scandals on Friday night? I know you still have your ID from the last time -” Blaine stops here for the tiniest fraction of a second but Kurt catches it all the same, thinking tensely back to the night as well. For the first time in the conversation, Blaine makes eye-contact with Sam, forced smiles crossing both their faces. “Sebastian says you won’t need one to get in.”
“Oh,” Sam answers, dumbly. He turns to Kurt with a raised eyebrow. “And Scandals is...?”
Kurt clears his throat and squeezes convulsively at his hand. “A bar. A gay bar.”
For a moment Blaine looks between the two of them, thoughtfully. “I don’t want things to be strained with us,” he explains, eyes settling on Kurt. Sam’s fingers tighten slightly around his. “I know it sounds awkward but I want us to try.”
“Sam goes back to Kentucky on Friday nights,” Kurt replies, trying his best to sound apologetic. He’s relieved, so relieved to have an excuse to cling to, a barrier between himself and Blaine’s new love affair with the anti-christ.
But at his side, Sam shrugs. “I can wait ‘til Saturday.”
Kurt turns to him sharply in disbelief. Blaine doesn’t notice this, either.
He smiles at them both, making his way for the choir room door. “Thanks, guys. We’ll see you then.”
“I guess you will,” Kurt agrees with fake enthusiasm, but the room is empty besides he and Sam now. His phone buzzes in his pocket - probably Finn from the parking lot, wondering where they are with grammatical difficulty.
He pulls his hand out of Sam’s, frowning. “Explain that. Explain why you would willingly put either of us through a night of torture.”
Instinctively, he sees Sam’s hand reach out again, then gesture at the door Blaine just left through. “Because they think they’re hot shit!” he exclaims, eyebrows all the way up. Kurt cocks one at him, and Sam takes a long breath in. “If we don’t go, that Sebastian kid is gonna make it into some excuse you made up because you’re still into Blaine or something, and you know that. And Blaine would probably think it, too.”
Kurt relaxes, still frowning.
“We can just show them that’s not true. You’re over it, you’re over him, you’re...” Sam pauses then, staring at Kurt with suddenly pale eyes before scratching his neck and looking down at where his feet are scuffing across the floor. “Are you?”
It’s a big question, Kurt thinks. He’s avoided it, avoided anything about Blaine so actively the past few weeks for fear of how it might hurt. Instead, he’s been agonising little by little over Sam in small glances in class and long looks in the house. Sam is so simple, too; Blaine is still a messy, dangerous topic, a fresh wound trying to re-heal from prod after prod.
He swallows, holding his own hand and looking away for a moment. Then he opens his mouth, unsure of what will come out, and his phone starts ringing loudly in his pocket.
Sam is staring at him still as he answers it, tells Finn they’ll be out in a second. Kurt looks away, feeling ashamed, and the only thing he says to Sam on their way out is, “I’ll have to pick your clothes. Make sure they’re gay enough to get you in,” smiling coyly and bumping their shoulders together.
Sam half-smiles back but refuses to meet his eyes.
-
Friday night.
They still haven’t spoke about the Blaine-shaped elephant in every room they occupy together, and Kurt intends to keep it that way.
Finn watches from the guest room bed as Kurt styles Sam’s hair, crunching on a bag of potato chips and wearing a confused expression.
“What makes gay bars so different from like...” His face screws up. “Bar-bars?”
Kurt slides Sam’s thick bangs back, fingers curled a little too tight. He thinks of tugging on his hair, pushing needy fingers through it, then his face burns hot and he tries to stop thinking at all. “Everyone is gay in them.”
“Or bi,” Sam adds. His eyes flick up to Kurt’s face. “Right?”
Kurt shrugs. “Yeah. Stop moving your head, now.”
“Sorry.”
Finn sits up, mouth a little open so Kurt can see the crushed remnants of his food when he glances his way. He swallows with effort. “Kurt, you can’t go out to a gay bar with your boyfriend in those pants. Dudes’ll try it with you.”
Kurt can see the quirk of Sam’s smile even with his head so downturned. “Doubtful,” he answers without looking away, giving Sam’s hair one more testing pat to see if it’s in place before letting him go to the mirror and see for himself.
Stumblingly, Sam walks over to it, and Kurt notices watching him that he’s not the only one in temptingly, stupidly tight pants tonight.
“Gross,” Finn says. “Don’t check each other out while I'm in the room. At least try to be subtle about it, man.”
Sam looks over his shoulder at them quizzically, and Kurt rolls his eyes and pretends to be very, very concerned with the lapel of his checkered blazer, knowing his cheeks are hopelessly bright red.
“We look good,” Sam counters, shrugging. He steps in front of Kurt again, avoiding his eyes and straightening his blazer out for him with his big, nice hands.
Kurt reaches up and takes them into his own reflexively and Sam looks up at him in surprise, wide-eyed.
Then he smiles, letting go of one and pulls Kurt another inch closer with the other. “You ready?” he says, brushing down Kurt’s shirt again.
Not trusting his voice, Kurt simply nods, unable not to smile back.
-
Scandals isn’t what Sam expects, he says. It’s as dark and gloomy as ever, the men in it mostly middle-aged asides from the two obvious teenagers at the bar, one of whom waves them over with a smile.
“You guys made it,” Blaine says enthusiastically when they’ve crossed over to meet them, and he’s slurring a little. He reaches out to clasp Kurt firmly on the arm, almost falling off of his stool in the process. After settling back in, Sebastian’s hand on him for balance, he grins at the two of them, says, “Hi. This is Sebastian.”
Sebastian snorts and barely looks at them, but holds the empty bottle of beer in front of Blaine up in front of them. “This is Blaine’s reaction to potentially awkward situations with exes.” Then he graces Kurt with a look, falsely friendly. “I guess you’ve both been busy enough post-relationship.”
The desire to cause Sebastian bodily harm returns in full-force. Unable to form any words that could pass for polite, Kurt says nothing and instead Sam interjects with an agreeing, “Yeah,” and slips a strong arm around Kurt’s waist.
Kurt takes a moment out of the awkwardness to smile a little to himself at the feel of it.
When he looks up, Sebastian is still smiling at him, something he knows is forced for Blaine’s sake alone. “He’s totally out of it,” he comments, tilting his head at Blaine who has his head thrown back for another drink of beer. “If you guys want to cut and run, be my guest.”
Something glints in his eyes. A challenge.
“I’m gonna grab a beer,” Sam announces, smiling back just as big at Sebastian. He presses his lips to Kurt’s cheek for a brief moment before pulling them over to the free stools beside Blaine, and Kurt follows him, dazedly, his heart doing something funny and embarrassing in his chest.
-
Sam is a bad dancer. Kurt already knows as much, but it still surprises him just how bad, sometimes. Like tonight.
He allows Sam to forcibly pull him onto the floor after a bathroom trip and having Blaine’s drunk hands linger too long on him again, then Sam starts doing some form of crumping where he looks possessed by an evil spirit and not just half a beer.
“If you’re trying to diffuse the tension, you’re succeeding,” Kurt yells over the music, laughing.
Sam pretends to be confused. He stops what he’s doing, stepping further into Kurt’s personal space with his broad, dorky grin. “I’m really bad at this,” he says into Kurt’s ear.
Kurt doesn’t even care. He just likes the feel of having Sam so close, the warmth of his breath on his already burned-up skin. He touches his own lips against the side of Sam’s face and puts his palms on his chest, cautiously light. “It’s okay.”
That big smile is flashed at him again. Sam pulls away just to show him it, then stands, half-dancing with Kurt for ten minutes while he tells him about the bad-dance-off he and Finn once had when the house was empty.
By the time they go back to the bar, Blaine has gone off to the bathroom, another empty bottle in front of his chair, and the cold, familiar smirk has returned to Sebastian’s face when he looks at the two of them.
"I was thrilled when I heard you'd be bringing the Kentucky Fried Stripper tonight," he tells Kurt through his mean, hard smile.
Sam tenses up at his side and Kurt reaches for his hand, tangling their fingers together and firmly rubbing his thumb across Sam's popped knuckles. His own jaw clenches and Sebastian looks at them both for a moment, clearly pleased with himself. He takes a quick mouthful of beer before setting it down on the bar and leans in close to Kurt, the alcohol strong on his breath and remaining, ugly jealousy over Blaine clear in his eyes.
"It must be costing your little family a fortune for you to date him." It has the same fake pleasantness of everything he says, but there’s the slightest quirk of a sneer on his mouth. He faces Sam and gives him a considering look, an eyebrow cocked up, and Kurt’s teeth grind together so hard he wonders if they can hear it. "Is it an hourly rate thing? Or are you being the best gay you can be and trying to re-enact the plot of Pretty Woman with someone of equal mouth-size as Julia Roberts?"
Sam squeezes painfully tight around his hand and Kurt knows without it there he'd be making a fist, and Sebastian would be lying on the floor with the imprints of his knuckles on his face, his mouth finally shut. A part of him is fuming, hot and trembling with anger and urging himself to let go, to just let Sam hit him.
Sebastian pretends he doesn't notice the tension in both of them. His smile widens, cruel and thin across his face. "And those awkwardly attempted body-rolls must be extra. Even you'd have to ask yourself, is he really even worth -"
There's a sickening sound of bones colliding, cracking, and then a following throbbing ache in Kurt's right hand and throbbing rage coursing all through him. Blood starts trickling out of Sebastian's nose, first in tiny trails then in sudden, thick spurts.
Because Kurt just punched him in the face. Hard.
"What the fuck," Sebastian hisses, voice nasally and clogged. Even with his head tilted back, Kurt can see his glare and the sheer amount of blood that's gushing from his nose; he can't even begin to feel guilty for it. He’s still mad, still has something wound up inside of him, rattling against his ribcage, desperate and furious to get out.
He steps forward, keeping Sam's limp hand tight in his own, and jabs Sebastian's chest with his finger, enjoying the way it makes him flinch, some blood spattering against his preppy shirt.
"You do not talk about him like that," Kurt tells him, lowly. He pauses, swallowing in an attempt to get rid of some of the adrenaline furiously coursing through him. Sebastian is just staring at him over the hand clutching his nose, silently. "Stay away from us both."
Turning to face Sam, he breathes out a soft, “Let’s go,” and grabs his jacket, putting money down on the bar and leaving before any of the guys working there coming steadily closer to them can’t force him to, Sam’s hand still clutched firmly in his own.
-
Sam is quiet on their walk back to the car. Kurt’s strangely nervous to look at him and gauge his reaction - he has no idea what to expect, really.
They stand by Kurt’s Navigator, hands sticking together with sweat at this point, something that should make him pull his away, mildly grossed out, but instead makes his heart flutter a bit, enough to stall getting his keys out of his pocket to hold on a big longer. He holds them in his hand, giving them a long look. The silence stretches on and Kurt just can’t bear imagining what Sam might be feeling right now.
“Don’t listen to him,” he urges, voice pleading. He turns to Sam, finding his green eyes fixed between them on their locked hands. They flick up to his own and something about his hunched posture and red cheeks makes Kurt want to go back inside and hit Sebastian again, just for good measure. Kurt squeezes Sam’s hand and says as firmly as he can, “Don’t let what some know-nothing asshole says get you down, Sam. Please.”
Sam blinks at him, eyebrows pushing to meet each other. His mouth parts open, but instead of talking he pulls Kurt closer by the hand, winds his long fingers into his hair and kisses him hard and deep, his other hand fisting Kurt’s blazer and tugging them further together.
Finally.
Kurt lets out a shaky breath against him in surprise. Sam is pressing small, firm kisses across his lips, tugging gently at the bottom one with sharp teeth until they part. He makes a soft noise into Kurt’s mouth, and then all the adrenaline Kurt tried to abandon back in Scandals is back in full force, making his arms wrap around Sam’s broad shoulders and push him back against the car to lick deeper into his mouth, to press so tightly against him he can feel the speeding beat of Sam's heart matching his own.
“What you did in there, that was -” Sam huffs against the corner of his mouth, breathlessly, then he presses another quick kiss there before finishing, “Awesome."
He’s looking at Kurt’s face with bright eyes and sliding a warm hand through his his hair, trying to regain his breath. Kurt looks back, red-faced and just as breathless, trying to memorize the feel of Sam against him like this with no spaces between the two of them and with the bitter, alcoholic aftertaste of Sam on his tongue.
Kurt surges up again, grabbing Sam’s face in his hands and kissing him once more, thinking suddenly of the look on Sam’s face at Sebastian’s words, the way he’d seemed to visibly ache inside at the sound of them. “Don’t listen to him,” Kurt instructs him again, the words muffled but sharp. He drags a thumb across Sam's cheek. “You are so good, Sam.”
At that, Sam stares at him intently, almost searchingly for a long moment, and then he wraps Kurt up in his arms and holds him close for a while, head buried into his neck so Kurt can ticklingly feel it when he breathes him in, when Sam's lips brush his skin. They stand there wrapped up in each other until Kurt shakily, reluctantly tells him that they should be heading home, now.
-
The next morning, Sam is gone and his parents are back again.
Kurt gets up to greet them (and nervously knock once on the guest room door) and stays holed up in his room for a few hours, not thinking about kissing Sam outside of Scandals and pulling over on the way from Scandals to kiss him again on the side of the road, climbing into the passenger’s seat and saying his name, over and over.
God, he’s stupid. A perfectly good friendship, wasted. It isn’t all his fault, he knows, but he feels so guilty, so embarrassed, so insanely stupid anyway, and to top it all off his hand still hurts.
And he feels that way until midday, when Carole knocks curiously at his door and comes in, slowly, placing herself on the chair of his vanity table and giving him Finn’s anxious smile. She’s holding something in her arms, something big and obscured by the ugly pattern of her dress.
“Kurt,” she says, “Sweetie. Why is this in Sam’s room?”
She holds it out to him. Rachel’s binder.
Kurt lunges to take it out of her hands, quickly, his face reddening. “I, uh.” He holds it, hands a little shaky, and shrugs like it’s nothing. A three-hundred page instruction manual on winning his heart in Sam’s room - nothing. He knows Sam looks at it from time to time, probably getting some laughs out of Rachel’s incessant craziness.
“It’s a joke,” he decides, slowly meeting her eyes.
She presses her lips together, nodding in a motherly way where she pretends to be convinced for a split second. “Then why’s half of it highlighted, honey?”
Blinking, he looks down at the binder in his hands, paging through it with fumbling hands and finding that yes, Sam’s tacky bright yellow and orange permanent highlighters have made streaky waves over most of Rachel’s exclamation-point ridden advice, the same ones he makes over everything he reads so it’s easier and less jumbled up in his head, he says.
One bullet-point has been circled, underlined, pointed to by a dozen or so arrows.
• Make him feel loved!
Kurt spreads his hand out across it, a smile growing across his face and an excited warmth all through him.
Carole clears her throat, and when he jerks to look up at her, she’s just smiling at him, shrugging in a ‘what can you do?’ way. “I understand if you don’t want your dad to know, and I’ll respect that, but house rules still stand.” She leans over and kisses his warm, embarrassed cheek. “No funny business, alright?”
His face dunks immediately into the nearest pillow, burning red, and she laughs on her way out, leaving the binder still lying open on his lap.
-
He puts it back under Sam’s bed later on, then pulls it out again and flicks through it one more time feeling ridiculously smiley. His phone buzzes in his pocket three times before he rolls his eyes and closes it over, putting it away for a final time.
Sam is texting him.
i had 2 go at 7am
thn the babies kept me busy
i wanted to say bye
Kurt reads them over a few times, then falls back onto the guest bed, Sam’s bed, feeling the good kind of stupid. The happy kind.
Don’t worry about it, I know you did. I’ll see you tomorrow.
A long moment follows before his phone buzzes again in his hand.
i cant stop thnking of u punching sebastian i rlly cant
All Kurt’s been thinking about is biting down on Sam’s soft bottom lip and their bodies pressed together against the car, inside the car. But this is close enough, he thinks, and when he remembers back to the way Sebastian made him feel, the way Sam had looked, he can’t stop slow-motion replaying the moment in his mind, either.
-
Dinner on Wednesday night is awkward. Sam shows up just as they’re sitting down to eat, saying his hellos and quietly taking his seat directly opposite Kurt.
They smile at each other, and Kurt can literally feel Finn and his mom’s eyes on the two of them. Thankfully his dad is too distracted with the food. He’s eating it fast enough for Kurt to worry.
“Haven’t had a home-cooked meal in ages,” Burt tells the table, shaking his head. He puts a hand on Finn’s shoulder. “Let alone a family dinner.”
Kurt sees the way Sam ducks his head a little at that with a little smile evident on his face.
Burt looks between the three of them, suddenly serious. “You boys are holding up okay with us gone, aren’t you? We’re heading back out on Thursday, that okay?”
“Fine,” Kurt answers before anyone can pay attention to the pointed look Finn gives he and Sam. “We can take care of ourselves.”
His dad smiles at him knowingly. Carole is smiling at him, too, the only difference is she looks like she’s about to burst out laughing.
Afterwards, Kurt insists on cleaning the kitchen. His parents are constantly exhausted now, and since clearly Finn doesn’t notice, Kurt tries to let them have it easy around the house. It helps to have Sam around, shuffling in beside him at the sink, scraping his plate alongside Kurt’s into the garbage disposal.
Kurt bites his lip to keep from smiling and Sam leans in close, murmurs, “Hey,” out of his big, ridiculous grin.
It’s too hard to fight it. Kurt lets his mouth curve upwards, bumping his shoulder off of Sam’s playfully. The firmness of Sam’s body comes back to him in heavy flashes, phantom-touches. His skin is electrified by the memories of it. “Hi.”
Sam looks over his shoulder then drops the plate in his hands on the counter. He opens his mouth, staring right into Kurt’s face, then swallows, looking into the sink. “Remember that time you punched Sebastian in the face?”
Mild disappointment settles in Kurt’s chest. He gives Sam a grin, stacks the cleared plates on top of each other and turns away to face the dishwasher where he lets the expression fade. “Hopefully I’ll never forget it.”
This isn’t what he wants to talk about. This isn’t how seeing Sam again was supposed to go.
“Me neither,” Sam agrees. “It was the best thing I’ve ever seen outside of a cinema. There should’ve been a little box that came up next to you saying ‘pow.’”
Kurt smiles at him, vaguely, feeling his heart drop in his chest. They finish the kitchen together, talking about the same things they did last week, and Kurt aches the entire time much worse than he did for Blaine.
-
It continues like that the rest of the week, in school and at home. Sam doesn’t want to remember so Kurt lets it go. He tries to. He really wishes that he wanted to, even a little, but the problem is Sam is still so sweet, his hands still so warm, and Kurt admittedly likes him far too much.
He should have known it was going to be a mess.
It takes until Wednesday for Blaine to talk to him again, stopping him by the notice-board to apologize profusely for being drunk, for whatever Sebastian said, and Kurt looks at him when he’s finished and wonders whether he wants an apology back, because if he does he’s completely out of luck.
“Sam’s the one who deserves an apology,” he says. His jaw tenses, and he’s angry thinking back to what Sebastian said despite himself. It’s no use with people like him.
Blaine stares at him looking almost petrified, then ducks his head embarrassedly. He won’t look at Kurt while he talks. “I gave him one already. It was really, really inappropriate of me, Kurt, I’m sorry. You’re right, we do need time apart for all this to set in better.”
Confused, Kurt crosses his arms, head tilting to touch the wall he’s leaning against. “What are you talking about?”
They look at each other for a moment. Blaine wraps himself in his own arms, eyes darting from Kurt’s.
“I couldn’t stop touching you. Even after you went to the bathroom and Sam told me to, when you came back I did it again. I’m just used to it, I guess...” He bites his lips, holding himself, then gazes up into Kurt’s face for forgiveness. “I’m sorry, to both of you. I really wish that night had gone differently.”
Kurt tells him it’s okay. He kind of does, too.
-
Sam holds his hand in glee practice until Kurt pulls it away.
He doesn’t know why they’re still doing it. He doesn’t care how pathetic the truth would look anymore. He doesn’t want Sam to give him the look he does afterwards, something brief but visibly hurt that Kurt’s mind turns into a thousand things he knows it isn’t.
-
There’s a party at Mike’s house on Thursday night to celebrate the three day weekend.
Finn drags Kurt into his room to pick an outfit for ‘getting some’, and Kurt is thankful to have an excuse to avoid Sam. It’s becoming a habit, spending more time in his bedroom than in the living room with the two of them and turning Sam down whenever he shows up at his bedroom door with some crappy action movie they can rip apart together, saying he has to study.
“You okay?” Finn asks, clumsily pulling on the shirt Kurt picked out for him. His head pops out of the neck, looking concerned.
Kurt hums and picks up one of his four ugly belts, each more hideous than the last. He offers it out without considering how it will look on, not that Finn knows if it’s good or bad anyway. “It’s been a long week.”
A hand weighs down his shoulder. Finn is giving him a serious look.
“Sorry if I was weird about you and Sam to begin with,” he says, which isn’t the best conversation starter for Kurt right now. “But I like you guys together, and if something’s wrong between you guys right now or whatever, it’ll work out. Really.”
Even if they aren’t actually dating, the sentiment is touching enough. Kurt reaches up and pats Finn’s hand, giving him the small smile of thanks that always makes him light up, pleased with his brotherly actions.
He leaves Finn, trusting him to put on the jeans he chose without much difficulty, and slips quickly back into his own room to regard himself in the mirror. He’s dressed well, as always, slim-fitting clothes, black boots, perfectly styled hair. He can see the same aura of sadness around his reflection like he could months ago after being dumped by Blaine.
It manages to feel a little worse this time around. He sighs at himself, turning away again, and hears his door creak open an inch.
“Kurt?”
Knowing Sam can’t see him, he squeezes his eyes shut and lets out a long breath before facing him with an inquisitive, forced smile.
Sam shifts from foot to foot in his doorway, smiling nervously. He takes another step in and says, “Could you do my hair again?” Then he looks around at Kurt’s room, stopping on Kurt himself. “I wasn’t born with your skills.”
“Sure,” he agrees with a nod, still unable to tell Sam no. God, he has a problem. At some point habitual bouts of self-pity just become acts of pure masochism. He tries to smile, waving Sam over to him. “Because my heart is just breaking for you.”
Sam grins, walking over to him. He stands with his hands dug into his pockets, facing the floor, and lets Kurt run trembling fingers through his hair coated in wax. His hands are too light, too gentle, but he doesn’t want to feel any closer to Sam than this. It’s too much already.
“There.” His voice is soft, sounding frail in a way he doesn’t think he’d be able to hide. He puts his arms around himself and wishes Sam had kissed him when he came home again.
Sam looks up, slowly, a pained look crossing his face. His bottom lip is worried between his teeth, and Kurt knows how it feels to bite, knows how it tastes, feels.
“Kurt,” Sam breathes.
In reply, Kurt just shakes his head without looking away from his dresser.
“Guys,” Finn yells from downstairs, “Time to get a move on.”
-
Kurt is their designated driver, surprising no-one.
It’s a regular New Directions party by the time they get there, the majority of them already drunk and giving Kurt terrible second-hand embarrassment, and the others in a game of hide-and-seek around the Chang’s huge house. Mike grins at them all when they come in, pressing a beer into Kurt’s hands that he turns and gives to Sam instead, not meeting his eyes.
He sits on the quietest couch, with self-proclaimed teetotal Rachel who pulls him in excitedly after giving Finn a quick kiss on the cheek.
“You’re driving, right?” Rachel asks, squeezing both his hands in her vice-grip. At his nod, she lets out a relieved sigh and relaxes. “Oh, good. Being the only sober one of the group isn’t as rewarding as you might think.”
“Mmm,” Kurt replies. He doubts he’ll have much more to offer her, tonight, but she nestles into his side and starts talking animatedly about New York parties and putting your pinky out when you take a drink and all this other random stuff Kurt doesn’t absorb at all.
He sits there, lifeless, letting Santana throw peanuts at the two of them until Rachel storms off to the bathroom, affronted.
“What’s eating you?” Santana asks, kicking her legs up on the expensive looking coffee table. “Minus that non-stop ramble of bullshit Berry just gave you.”
The room is empty except for them. Kurt lifts his head out of his hands and looks at her. Why not just tell someone, he thinks.
“I like Sam. Too much.”
She stares at him hard for a moment, absorbing it, then continues staring after he’s turned away, looking at his car through the window.
At the other side of the room, he hears her sigh and place her drink down. “It gets easier, you know. I know it sounds super gay, and I won’t hesitate to cut you deep if you tell anyone I’m saying it, but you need to be honest for a relationship to work. I know how scary saying it to someone is - believe me - but if that’s how you feel.” She shrugs, leaning back again. “You gotta tell him.”
Kurt sighs. It isn’t that easy. None of it is really honest anymore, he thinks. They’ve lost that, too.
“Look,” Santana says, clicking her fingers at him until he looks at her again, “Just - think about it, okay?”
-
Kurt is pouring himself his fourth glass of water in the kitchen when he sees Sam again.
“I got drunk,” Sam tells him, thickly, closing the kitchen door behind him. He takes a tipsy step closer. “I got sad so I got drunk.”
Raising his glass, Kurt concurs, “You did.”
With his face flushed and clothes a little wrecked, Sam looks painfully good. Kurt looks away, holding onto the countertop in his tight hands to keep steady. He can still hear Sam getting closer, one shaky step after the other.
Then Sam is nosing at the back of his neck, his hands clasping his shoulders from behind. Kurt tenses, ready to turn and push him away, tell him he’s drunk and that they can’t make anymore stupid mistakes together like this.
“Do you love Blaine?” Sam mutters, breath hot against his skin. He nuzzles in, hands sliding lower down Kurt’s back and making him shudder. “Is the only reason we’re doing this thing because you still love him and you want him to...” Sam swallows, audibly. “You want him to want you, again?”
There’s a ringing in Kurt’s ears. His mouth drops open slightly, and he before he can finish saying, “Sam, no,” Sam is talking again, his voice low and familiarly fragile sounding.
“Because if he does, I swear Kurt, I swear he’s not gonna want you as much as me. He couldn’t.” Sam’s cheek rubs at the first jutting knob of his spine, and his skin is warm, the touch of it to his own making Kurt’s breath quiver in his chest. “I’ve never felt like this. I didn’t know it could feel like this,” he says, his voice breaking.
When Kurt turns to him, Sam’s eyes are red, face drawn into an expression of pain. He breathes out shakily and steps closer to Kurt, a hand coming up to push through his hair and the other just to rest, comfortingly warm, against his cheek. Kurt sighs and leans forward at the touch.
“Please don’t want him,” Sam says.
Kurt almost laughs it’s all so ridiculous. He presses his palms to Sam’s chest, crushing the material of his shirt into his hands, desperately. “I want you,” Kurt tells him, like it’s as completely obvious as it’s always been.
Sam’s eyes flutter shut. He backs Kurt against the counter and buries his head into his neck, breathing in deep. “You never talked about it,” he says, as though he’s reading Kurt’s own mind. Sam shakes his head, his wet lips dragging across Kurt’s collarbone. “Then you avoided me. You were trying to forget.”
“I thought you already had,” Kurt explains, keeping his voice soft and calm. He pulls Sam’s head back up with unsteady hands, bumps their foreheads together, stares into the green of his eyes. “Let’s fake-break-up.”
With a crooked nod, Sam says, “Okay.” He waits a second then gives Kurt a quick kiss on the side of his mouth, the one he’s been waiting for all week. “Be my boyfriend.”
Kurt kisses him again, just as chastely. “Tomorrow,” he says, rubbing his thumb across Sam’s jaw, “Ask me tomorrow when you won’t taste like beer.”
Sam blinks at him for a moment, confused, before letting out a loud, happy laugh. He squeezes Kurt against him and they feel so nice, pressed against each other. “I won’t even brush my teeth. It’ll be all Evans.”
-
It’s early Friday morning, and Sam is at his bedroom door with Rachel’s binder in his hands and a sleepy, contented smile on his face, already dressed to leave for Kentucky.
“You look good hungover,” Kurt lets him know, crossing his arms of his pyjama shirt. He’s smiling too big. Kurt knows if any of their friends were here they’d find it obnoxious, how happy they are.
Sam grins broader, says, “You look good not-hungover." He taps his fingertips on Rachel's binder then offers it out towards him. "I want to give you this."
For a moment Kurt stares silently at him. He reaches out and takes it into his arms, the sheer, insane weight of it dragging them both down.
Sam takes a deep breath. "I don't want instructions on how to date you," he says, sounding a little breathless, excited, "I want to learn it all on my own."
One of his hands slips behind Kurt's head, and before he knows it he's being pulled into a long, soft kiss in his bedroom doorway, one that pulls a surprised but pleased sound from his throat and makes him stumble over his own feet a little in eagerness.
Sam pulls back, huffing, still grinning so big.
"You brushed," Kurt points out, half of him thankful, the other half not even sure he would have cared otherwise.
Nodding, Sam huffs out a laugh. "I hope that shows you the lengths I'm willing to go to for this." There's a gentle smile on his face as he stands there, looking down at Kurt and pushing his bangs back from his forehead with slow, lazy fingers. "So, what do you say?"
Kurt puts the binder down on the floor and reaches up, winding his arms around Sam's neck. He nods, kisses the side of his face, feels kind of in love already. "What do you think?"