Glee!fic, Happenchance
Happenchance, Glee!fic
Disclaimer: Neither my characters nor even my plot.
Rating: NC-17, mostly for smut, though lots of adult issues are discussed.
Warnings and spoilers: Okay, no spoilers beyond season two because we're batshit AU. Warnings? This is based off what I'm assuming was originally a kink meme prompt (which I never never never intended to write and exists only because it literally would not shut up in my head and I have an exam on Friday, I *need* my head right now) - I've never seen the original prompt, though I've read a lot of variations on it; in a dystopian world, arranged marriages are the norm and consummation is obligatory. There is obviously a lot of scope for squick in there; my primary warning is that we spend a lot of this fic *discussing* consent, although it contains no actual non-con and nothing I write will. It's a massive squick for me, so obviously I'm not going there. There will also be a fairly epic author's note under the cut ^^;
Summary: Some computer somewhere threw streams of data together that turned into Kurt and Blaine under one roof, made them the rest of the other's life. Assignations are compulsory; who's naïve enough to hope for love?
Note: I will try to keep this relatively brief! I have absolutely no idea where this fic concept originally came from, and it is a work of absolute evil genius. The *scale* of issues it brings up is just immense. It contains issues I'm not always comfortable thinking about but being *forced* to think about them (this fic is not something I wanted to write ^^;) can be quite fruitful. The particular slant I went for here was that all 'marriage' is compulsory at a particular age, I think the original prompt was just for gay marriage (?), because a society heterosexist enough to force that is likely heterosexist to go further (casual misogyny is also part of forcing particular 'gender' roles onto people). The people who define what sexuality is, define what sex is, get to define what sexual dysfunction is, get to make it sound like they're *helping people* by making them do things they don't want to do; it is a seriously, seriously disturbing scenario and gives a really alarming look at some real world matters too. Plus I do just *like* a good dystopia, I read Fahrenheit 451 as a teenager and it was one of those life-skewing books, like, I know that humanity can be that, but I hope to god that we can be that as well. Which is why this story is largely about trying to own something that the powers that be have tried to take from you: because it's *them*, and I know they would always make it work for each other.
The most fun I had with this plot was rewriting Disney movies in my head so they were actually propaganda pieces for assigned marriages. True story. Now, fic.
Kurt has a pamphlet about the night before his assignation. It tells him that it's likely that he'll feel nervous, because he's about to meet the person that he's going to spend the rest of his life with. It tells him that every assignation is different for every person, that love has to be worked at, it may not happen immediately but it will, if he makes it. It tells him to refer to another pamphlet about the assignation night itself.
He's put that pamphlet at the very bottom of the last bag he packed, and he's still as aware of it as if it's emitting a constant high note, keeping his sinews tight.
So he sits on the edge of his bed, not his bed for longer than tonight, with pamphlets on the covers next to him, and he compresses it all down so small and tight inside, crushes it down like coal pressed into something diamond-hard and painful in his guts. There is no way around it. There is no avoiding it. These things can only be endured.
He blinks at his ceiling for a while, until the tears die back.
His dad knocks twice before he pushes open the door and Kurt looks across at him, and swallows. His dad walks across, looks down at them and then pushes the pamphlets to one side so that he can sit next to Kurt on the bed, while Kurt looks at the carpet, and focuses on keeping his breathing steady.
"Everyone's scared," his dad says quietly. "Hell, I thought my life was over. But - but I got real lucky in my assignations, Kurt. I - I want that for you too."
The tears are so hot they hurt but he contains them, swallows again hard and blinks and blinks and says roughly, "I know." Kurt's the one who encouraged him towards his second assignation, less than a year ago; Kurt's mom had died so long ago, and Kurt would be assigned soon, and his dad would be better getting used to a new life without Kurt in it as soon as possible. And yes, Carole is lovely, and yes, Kurt's dad got lucky twice. But.
He wants to whimper, Dad I don't want this I don't ever want this -
His dad puts an arm around him, squeezes his shoulder. Kurt blinks and blinks and blinks oh god and his dad says, "It's gonna be okay, buddy. Just - just, whatever happens, you'll make it work. It's what becoming an adult's about."
Kurt sucks his breath in through his nose, keeps his eyes on the ceiling, blinks and blinks.
He's been assigned, in every sense. They've allocated him a partner and more than that a role; Kurt Hummel, not that that name will belong to him for much longer, will be the primary caregiver in his new 'family' unit. He hasn't been allocated a gender, he knows that, gender itself has nothing to do with what they mean, he's been allocated a role. He has a very particular pamphlet relating to it. What will be expected of him.
There will be a kit in the bathroom he must use, afterwards, for proof.
And he wants to say, Dad -
He swallows again, and lifts a hand, blots with the heel of it at the underneaths of his eyes because the tears are making the skin feel raw. He can't say it, not out loud, he physically couldn't get it out right now and it wouldn't change anything anyway, he's been assigned to some guy he's never met before, some man he is legally obliged to - to let -
And there is no-one, no-one he can turn to, no-one he can look to for help, this is happening tomorrow night and there's no-one he can sob he made me to because the man will be obliged to make him, neither of them get a say in this, but all Kurt can think of is some man he doesn't know holding him down -
Non-consensual sex has been eliminated by changing the definition of consent: sex with a non-assigned partner is by definition an illegal activity. Sex with an assigned partner is obligatory. Assignations must be consummated. And Kurt is supposed to be grateful for the decade-young law that means he can be assigned to someone of his preferred gender, like that makes it better. Like it makes a difference if he doesn't want it anyway -
His dad cups his cheek like he's a child again, and thumbs the tears away, and his jaw moves in clenched silence for a second before he says, low and rough, "The tank's full. We've got your last bag for tomorrow still." Kurt blinks at him, lifts a hand to cover his nose as he sniffs. "Could make it to the border, maybe. Get over into Canada-"
"Dad," Kurt chokes, he wants to laugh, oh god. "Dad, your heart, we can't go on a cross-country car chase -"
"Screw my heart." his dad says, and his voice is getting choked. "You think this is doin' my heart any good?"
Kurt swallows it down, and again, and it hurts, like swallowing furniture. "What about Carole and Finn?"
"They could come with us."
"What about the tyre shop, what about your lives? Dad - I get it, it's fine, this is just what happens, I - Dad you can't do something insane for me, they'll lock us all up."
"Kurt, the face you got on, they're doin' that to you anyway."
Kurt closes his eyes, wet lashes on his skin, then takes in a little breath and lifts his head. "This happens to everyone. I don't get to be special. I might even . . ." He picks at his own fingers on his lap. "You did get lucky. Twice."
His dad says quietly, "Three times." and hugs him in again, squeezing his shoulder, and it's the last night that Kurt's allowed to be a child, so he cries.
*
They still call them weddings. They like the idea of romance, if it's controlled. At the Assignation Office Kurt and his family - Finn's face is entirely rigid, he and Rachel have requested each other for their assignation but they haven't had the verdict yet and all of this, Kurt knows, is merely sinking home for him what they will really really have to do so very soon - sit in one of the waiting rooms; there will be another room with another family in it, and another boy feeling sick to his stomach.
Probably a boy. A reassigned widower, maybe, god knows what age. A man from a failed assignation, never consummated, having gone through the 'therapeutic programme' that should 'fix his problem'; refusal to consummate is a crime, and asexuality is too dangerous to be allowed, anyone could claim asexuality just to avoid an assignation, so no-one has the right to claim it at all. Or someone reassigned because his partner was 'dysfunctional'. It could be anyone in that other room. Anyone at all with any history at all, and Kurt feels stirrings of sympathy, empathy-anxiety on top of his own misery for what they might be going through -
But then he remembers what they're going to do to him, and he feels dropped down somewhere dark again, and alone.
The Assignation Officer at the desk stamps one of his forms and initials it. "Can you confirm that you are Kurt Hummel?"
Kurt closes his eyes, manages a little nod, opens his mouth and nothing comes out. He swallows, wets his lips, manages to whisper, "Yes."
"And you are aware of the role you've been assigned and what will be expected of you?"
He feels the blood drain, prickling, out through the tiny veins in his face. His voice is a bare breath; "Yes."
"You understand that consummation is expected within the first twenty-four hours. Failure to consummate can lead to therapeutic intervention or criminal conviction."
". . . yes."
"Could you please sign here and here to confirm that you understand?"
Kurt's shivery signature is spider-web thin on the hungry white space of the document. He hears his dad let his breath out on one of the chairs at the edge of the room, hard through his hand. Kurt swallows, and plays with the pen a little.
"Reassignation is possible only in cases of extreme domestic abuse or sexual dysfunction. You will have to pass through Office-sanctioned mediation before reassignation will be considered. Please sign here to indicate that you understand."
Kurt wonders, very small and distant while he signs, what they count as 'extreme' domestic abuse. What do they overlook as acceptable abuse, in a system where sex can't be refused?
The Officer gathers the papers and signs beside all of Kurt's signatures, then stamps them again. "You now need to sign in the presence of your partner. Please wait here."
She leaves through the door behind the desk, and Kurt folds his hands in each other, squeezing the knuckles, trying to get some life back into the numb lumps they've become. A chair scrapes behind him and his dad puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezes hard. "You doin' okay?"
Kurt nods, even though he isn't. He even manages to force the thin shape of a smile onto his mouth, because his dad doesn't need to think about Kurt with his face like this all night when Kurt's under some other man's roof and they both know what's happening to him. But the door ahead opens, and Kurt and his dad look up at the Officer, who gives a quick smile. "If the family would like to come through?"
She steps aside to let them pass, Kurt can see the larger room through there, the few rows of chairs, a desk at the front with windows behind it. Assignations never have large audiences, they only need minimal legal witnessing - close family is usually more than enough. Kurt plays with the pen a little, the sickness rising and roiling in his stomach, and he thinks, I wonder how many people actually throw up at their assignations, catching Finn's eye as he walks out, Finn looking utterly terrified on Kurt's behalf. It could almost, almost, be funny.
The Officer says, "Give them a minute to settle down." and checks her watch, looks up at the display above the door, unlit. Kurt swallows and swallows, mouth too dry to breathe, and he could ask her, if he could choke it out, Who is he, what's he like -?
But he can't make any words come, and he won't give the world the satisfaction of his begging now anyway. He holds his back very straight, and says nothing at all.
The light above the door flicks on, after too long, after nothing like the desperate life's worth of time that he needs.
She opens the door again, gestures him through. The smile is bright and professional on her face as he scrapes his chair back, puts the pen down with a hard click, walks on too-long cotton-jointed legs up to her, then through into the room behind her. He feels more than sees the presence of his dad at the front. To the side -
Someone else is walking into the room parallel to him, at the other side of the chairs, through another door. He wavers but can't look, just stares dead ahead at the final desk in front of the chairs, where there are two more Assignation Officers, and their paperwork.
Kurt walks up to them, keeping his eyes exactly forwards, his heart beating somewhere high above his head, too high, not enough oxygen. The first thing he notices about the other man approaching the desk -
- is that Kurt doesn't have to look up to see the top of his head; the man Kurt is being given helpless over to is actually, really, quite short. Kurt has to glance at him when they both reach the desk at the same time, and he receives back a blankly terrified look from a boy his age with carefully slicked back hair and huge brown eyes underneath alarmed, alarming eyebrows, looking like all he is trying to do in the world is not whimper out loud. He is nothing that Kurt expected. He's an actual human being. Kurt doesn't know how to breathe out in that second.
Then they pull their chairs out, and they sit.
One of the Assignation Officers reads out the law, the contract they're entering into and the consequences of breaking it, but Kurt's only half aware of him, he's mostly trying to find the courage to slide his eyes further sideways than the boy's hand, which is clenched a little shakily on the edge of the desk. Kurt manages to drag his eyes back along his arm to his face and the boy looks back, manages a one-cornered twitch of a smile, and Kurt has to look ahead again. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't want to spend the rest of his life hating this person, he's going to share a house and a bed with him until death or something worse happens, but they both know what's going to happen tonight and Kurt cannot, cannot be obliged to do anything but endure it -
They have to take each other's hands to exchange rings, and Kurt is very shy, very embarrassed of the other boy's skin. The ring is cold around his finger. They sign each other's and then their own forms, one last time. These are countersigned by the two Assignation Officers. And then they're congratulated, and they call Kurt 'Mr Anderson', and the tears in that second blind him.
*
They have fifteen minutes until the next assignation is performed, and the boy Kurt's signed off to for the rest of his life turns in his chair and introduces himself. "I'm - Blaine. I . . . hi."
It is simply the strangest situation in all of the world. "Kurt," Kurt says, because he doesn't trust himself with too many syllables. "Hi."
Blaine looks at him and smiles awkwardly, looks at him, and Kurt looks away, folds his arms close around himself, doesn't know what to say or do. There's talking behind them and his dad walks up, says, "You gonna call me - soon as you can?"
Kurt opens his mouth and looks at Blaine, because that's no longer Kurt's call, Kurt has a role, and Blaine gets to decide these things. But Blaine is having his hair further smoothed by a dark-haired woman murmuring to him, while he ducks his head like an embarrassed child and flicks his eyes to the wall. "Yes." Kurt says, because he'll lock himself in the bathroom with the telephone if he has to but he needs to talk to his dad. He has never, never felt so alone before, like the tether to the rest of his life has been cut: nothing will ever be what it was again.
There's a car for them, an Assignation Officer to drive them to their allocated housing. The key is given to Blaine, and Kurt says nothing because he can't say anything, feeling too sick to properly resent anything while Blaine keeps his chin dug in a little, head always a little low, as if ashamed. Kurt gets one last hug from Carole and Finn, and one last bone-squeezing hug from his dad (don't cry don't cry don't cry) and he doesn't want to let go, if he never lets go then they can't make him get in that car -
But his dad's hand strokes down his back, and they both know.
Blaine's already parted from his parents, from what Kurt assumes is his older brother and his wife, and is standing by the car door waiting for Kurt, still looking awkward. So with a small gracious bend of his head - thank you for your consideration seeing as you do now own me - Kurt climbs in first, and his new husband (oh fuck that word to mean this) follows him, and closes the door behind them.
Kurt strains his neck looking out of the back window, until a corner takes his family from him for good.
There's a screen between them and the driver, so presumably they're supposed to talk. Kurt turns the ring on his finger with his thumb, and Blaine is jigging his knees with his palms on them, staring straight ahead. His entire body thrums, something not quite contained, until he comes out in a gasp of breath with, "You don't have to, this, this 'role' thing, I don't - believe in that. I don't - I'm not in charge of you, I'm not, I wouldn't ever try to control you, okay? I -" He rubs his forehead, and he looks absurdly young, and Kurt feels absurdly young. "I didn't expect . . . I sort of thought it would be the other way around anyway."
Talking shouldn't feel so difficult. "It's pretty much exactly what I expected," Kurt admits, and even manages to make it sound like a joke. Blaine looks across at him, smiles, a little. Kurt would like to smile back but he doesn't have the strength for it; now there's quiet, he's just exhausted. The stress has knocked him down and he's too weak to fight anything else. He swallows. "But still, I . . . the fact that I knew it was coming doesn't mean I don't . . ." He stops. He is not going to say 'thank you' to someone for not treating him like their property. He can't be expected to be grateful for it.
"I know, it's stupid, it doesn't matter. We can just ignore all that."
Something slick and black and slimy is alive inside Kurt's stomach. "We can't ignore all of it."
Blaine is silent, and Kurt doesn't look at him. Then Blaine says, "We're both going to be the biggest part of the rest of each other's lives. We . . . I really want this to be - okay. Good, I mean, if we can manage it. I want us to get along. Um."
Kurt keeps his arms folded around himself, and shrugs with one shoulder. "There's no reason why we shouldn't." Except that you are going to do this to me and we both know it.
"So . . . we should probably get to know each other. Um. Sometimes I snore, I've been told that. Sorry."
"I have an hour long bathroom routine. It's non-negotiable."
"Okay. I can't cook to save my life."
"I'm supposed to be doing that anyway."
"We could share. We could get - books, or something."
"I'm happy to cook. I - enjoy cooking." Please let me do something that feels normal to me.
"Okay, that's cool. I guess I'll get into enjoying doing the dishes."
Kurt looks across and Blaine's smiling, a little nervously, and Kurt looks at him - hopefully raised eyes and hopefully raised eyebrows, and there is something strangely adorable about his nose, and Kurt realises two things that choke inside him. One is that in any other circumstances, he would find this boy almost appallingly attractive.
Two is that in any other circumstances, Kurt would really like this boy. He would want to be his friend. He would like him. Mostly because, in any other circumstances, this boy wouldn't be not only legally permitted but legally compelled to fuck Kurt tonight, whatever Kurt feels about it.
Attractive and likeable are completely meaningless if this is going to happen either way.
Kurt swallows. "I like to sing. If that wouldn't - annoy you."
Blaine's eyes light. "I do too! No, that would be - amazing, no, you should totally sing. We can do duets!"
Kurt could almost laugh and maybe it shows on his face, because Blaine is finally beginning to look just a little bit relaxed, his grin falling looser. "I like watching sports but if there's something more important on I don't mind you changing the channel."
"I - don't watch sports but, I don't know, maybe you could teach me what any of it means."
"Trade you for cooking lessons," Blaine offers.
Kurt shrugs that one uncertain shoulder again, and rubs his arms. "Deal."
". . . hey. You know - your assignation forms? That long one we filled in. I'm trying to work out why they matched us, I seriously hope they didn't actually pull our names out of a hat or something. What . . . did you put for the most important thing you wanted in a partner?"
Kurt remembers the exact words, exactly how they looked with the cursor flashing at the end of the line of text. "What did you put?"
". . . someone I could be friends with."
Kurt rubs his arms. He stares at his shoes. He licks his lips a little.
Under any other circumstances, he would really like this boy.
He says, very dry, "Someone who wouldn't hurt me."
Blaine is silent, and it's a long, dragging pause before he says, very quiet, "I won't."
Which he must know is a lie, the rage claws up impotent in Kurt's stomach, he must know that for the lie it is and how dare he start the joke of the rest of their lives with that. Kurt stares out of the window after that, white-faced and breathing tightly through his nose, and they don't say anything until they're out in the neighbourhood of starter homes for newly assigned couples, close to the college, close to the main bus routes, everything so neatly thought out and so considerately planned.
Boys in Kurt's school used to joke about these boxy little houses, the first places they would all live out from their parents' homes. In the locker rooms, no teachers present, they called the double beds in their future bedrooms 'rape racks'.
And Kurt can't cry, because it's not like it would fix anything anyway.
*
Their new home is identical to all of the others; difference is something they will have to achieve, if they're successful in their lives. Grassed yard, empty dirt for flower beds, white front door. Blaine hands Kurt the key, and their Assignation Officer stands behind them, arms full of files, while Kurt tries with unco-operative hands to open the lock.
Inside it's small, serviceable, neutral. Hallway, staircase, kitchen to the left, living room to the right. Their Officer gives them a quick tour of a bland little house with all their boxes piled neatly in it. It feels so strange to walk into just one bedroom, with one big bed in it. The bathroom is small but not too disgraceful in terms of natural light. There's one bare little room the Officer recommends to them for a study, until they're ready to think about adoption.
(Where do adoptive children come from? Criminal parents, who let lust step them out of their assignations, or underage parents, who will be punished for what they enjoyed out of assignation. Abortion is not an option. Birth control is not available before assignation. What a joyous way, Kurt thinks, cold inside, to receive a baby into their lives. The baby can't help it, but knowing that your child could have been torn away from parents not willing to give it up . . . ?)
Then she leaves them with a further stack of papers and pamphlets, and tells them to relax and maybe unpack tomorrow, when she'll be back to 'check on them'. They both know what she'll check. Before she closes the door she tells them to enjoy their evening and smiles, which makes Kurt want to throw something at her (knives). He stands there in the hallway of a house he's never been to before with a boy he met two hours ago, and when Blaine says quietly, "Wow." it echoes off the empty walls like the house is a great deal bigger around them than it actually is.
Kurt draws his breath in, lets it shaking out. "I should start on dinner. They gave us the basics, I can at least make omelettes. Or something. If you - want."
"I don't know, I'm tired. Aren't you? We could just order pizza, watch a movie."
A pause, while they contemplate that they have no idea what taste in movies they might share. "Okay," Blaine says, and ticks off on his fingers, "anything Disney, anything with superheroes in it, anything funny or sad if you promise not to mock if I cry, or sci-fi or - actually kind of anything, I'm pretty easy to please."
"Lucky me," Kurt murmurs without even realising it, then sucks his breath in. "Anything, really, I don't mind. Disney." Disney is safe. "What's your favourite?"
"Lilo and Stitch. Elvis and space aliens!"
Kurt looks at his face, his lit-up little boy's face, and thinks, Under any other circumstances -
They order pizza, which involves more polite, awkward negotiation of toppings. While they unpack DVD collections from boxes (they will have to get rid of a lot of duplicates in the merging; science fiction and a handful of romcoms aside, they more or less share a DVD collection) onto the living room shelves, they discuss small, harmless things. Where their things will go. Lamps. Shades of paint, as soon as possible. "Maybe I can reupholster the sofa," Kurt says, eyeing it disdainfully, and Blaine grins and shakes his head as he pushes a box set of Star Wars DVDs onto the shelf and those at least they haven't duplicated . . .
The pizza arrives, and they eat in the living room, pizza box open on the coffee table, surrounded by stacked boxes. They watch Lilo and Stitch and it's all weirdly normal, weirdly nice, until Blaine goes to the bathroom to bring Kurt tissues when he cries like it hurts first just at the movie until that jogs further crying out of him because because because
"I know it's early," Blaine says when the movie's finished. "I'm just - beat, I just want to go to bed, if it's okay with you. You don't - have to yet, just because I am, um."
Nausea, cold and black inside, the rise and suck of an arctic tide around his insides. "No," Kurt whispers, numb lips. "I'm tired too."
There is no fighting it, after all.
Blaine offers him the bathroom first. Kurt stares at his own white face in the mirror and he doesn't look anything like someone who's okay with this. It's not that he tries to drag things out, he hasn't got enough of his mind together to try to delay, his hands are just awkward and difficult and he keeps forgetting what he's doing, staring into space and lost because, because, because.
The kit there for Kurt's later usage is in the cabinet above the sink, next to the toothpaste.
In their bedroom (this ought to be a joke, except that nothing about it is funny) Blaine stands up from unpacking clothes into a bottom drawer, says, "Um, do you - have a side?"
Kurt stares at him and shakes his head, then looks at the bed and opens and closes his mouth a little, clutching his clothes to himself, feeling like he's naked in his pyjamas. "The window?"
Blaine gives a quick smile and picks up an overnight bag, and closes the bathroom door behind himself. Kurt swallows.
He puts his clothes into the laundry basket, puts his hand cream and lip balm on the bedside table. He opens the drawer and there's lubricant in there and he closes it again. No condoms. Birth control is restricted to pills, and they already signed contracts today swearing their virginity and assuring their fidelity.
He sits up in 'his' side of the bed, and it doesn't matter how much he washed himself in that bathroom, he doesn't think that it's possible to feel clean right now. He slips in and out of consciousness, sitting bolt upright with his mind drifting in and out of focus whenever he comes too close to not being able to bear it. He doesn't know how much time passes. Too much. Not enough.
The bathroom door opens. The light clicks off.
"It's a good shower," Blaine says, and puts his clothes in the laundry basket. "I guess it's a nice house, it's not like we need much right now."
Kurt sits silent, fingers squeezing fingers in his lap.
Blaine rubs a hand at his hair, looser now after a shower, a frizz of dark curls; he's wearing a t-shirt and pyjama pants and Kurt can see the hair on his arms, how really real Blaine's body is strikes him like a shock, how physically there Blaine is, muscles and skin and bones and hair, the weight of him, his solidity. And the tears work their way up again but oh god there's no point now, he's come past the point where that could ever achieve anything -
Blaine stands there next to the bed, rubbing his wrist, not looking at Kurt. He draws a little breath in. He lets it out again. "I'm not really," he says, and stops. Kurt blinks and blinks, and makes himself look at him, and Blaine squeezes at the bridge of his nose and his eyebrows nip and then loosen; the gesture takes less than a second and as his hand falls Kurt realises, watching his face do just that, that he could fall in love with this boy. He's a real person, he's not anything he represents, he's a human being who does really beautiful things with his face and Kurt could love him, very easily, love him very hard. But.
"I know what's supposed to happen next," Blaine says, like he's forcing this out of himself, very serious, not quite like his voice when he was chatting about movies he likes and how they seriously will need more shelving, like he has to say this so he's saying it. It's an adult, controlled, false voice. "I'm - really not very comfortable with it. I know - I do know that we have to. But if - if it's okay with you I really, really want to take this as slowly as we can, it - just, it shouldn't, it - oh god."
Because Kurt is crying, now, helplessly into his hands, crying for the sick joke that this is, that neither of them want it and they still have to do it. Blaine stands there helplessly while Kurt's body rocks through the tears and then Blaine says, "Can I - I'm sorry, I don't - want to make you feel uncomfortable but, but we're supposed to be here for each other now, I'm here to comfort you, can I -?"
His hand touches, very gingerly, Kurt's arm. Kurt just lets his breath shake and shudder, as Blaine climbs onto the mattress and it tilts with his weight, and he sits next to Kurt and puts his arms around him and hugs him in like a friend. And it shouldn't be comforting, getting hugged by someone who is obliged to fuck you whether you want it or not, but it's not Blaine's fault any more than it's Kurt's so he lets him, leans into his side and cries himself weak, until Blaine plucks a couple of tissues from the box by the bed, and helps Kurt wipe his face off.
"I don't want to," Kurt whispers, squeezing the tissues into a tight-wadded ball in his hand. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know it's not your fault, I just don't want to."
"I know," Blaine says helplessly, rubbing at his back. "I - I didn't know it would be like this, I - we've got to spend the rest of our lives together and I don't want the first night to be this. Oh god that came out sounding wrong. Okay, we do have to spend the rest of our lives together, but I really am glad it's you, do you - know that? As soon as I saw you at the Assignation Office I - I don't even know, I felt like if this whole thing is just some stupid lottery we're stuck in then at least I really, seriously won."
The burst of breath escapes Kurt almost like a laugh. "It's not you," he says, and, very awkwardly, touches Blaine's bare arm. "You're nice," he says to it. "You really are. I like you." Small, small words. "I just. I don't want to."
Blaine rubs his back, just a little, and stares at the foot of the bed. Kurt closes his eyes, lets his breath out. He says, "I know we have to. It's not your fault."
Blaine shakes his head, and keeps on staring at the foot of the bed.
Kurt licks his lips, says, "Blaine, we have to. It - it might be alright. It . . ."
"I don't think I can."
"What do you -?"
Blaine looks down at himself, between the legs. Kurt follows his gaze without thinking and looks away immediately, face flushing; he could see the outline of Blaine through his pyjamas but - but he's not hard. Not even part of the way there. Blaine climbs underneath the covers at his side and sits there, wrists loosely crossed on top of the duvet. "I'm sorry," he says, very low. "It's not you. It's not that there's anything wrong with you. This just isn't a situation where I think I can make myself want to."
Kurt is silent, then wipes his eyes again, and the trash can is waiting discreetly there beside the bedside table for the tissues. They expected them to need tissues.
He literally hadn't even thought of this. He'd entertained a few brief fantasies of his partner finding him so hideous that he didn't want him, but they had paled into such insignificance beside the fantasy of his partner not caring and doing it anyway that he didn't really linger on them. A partner who doesn't want to do this to Kurt any more than Kurt wants it done to him for this reason had never entered his mind. That his partner would be as unsure, unready, afraid as he is, simply hadn't registered as a possibility.
He's been unfair, he thinks, looking at their arms above the covers, their hands with their new rings, both of them self-conscious and scared. Kurt's role had been assigned to him by an outside party but so was Blaine's, and he really doesn't need Kurt assigning him the role of rapist on top of it. Neither of them want to be doing this. But . . .
Kurt reaches across, and touches the back of Blaine's hand. Blaine looks up at him. "She'll come back tomorrow," he whispers. "She'll check. There's a - thing I have to use, a -" He can't bring himself to say it. Blaine turns his hand, wrapping it gently around Kurt's, and he rubs his eye.
"I know. It was in my information leaflets too." He swallows, and meets Kurt's eye. "It said my partner might appreciate my 'help and consideration' with it."
Kurt closes his eyes for a second, and squeezes Blaine's hand. "Blaine, we have to."
"Could we fake it somehow?"
The shudder must show at least a little on Kurt's face. "There are other ways they can check if they think we have."
Blaine is silent. Kurt feels his hand, warm and dry in his, and shifts his thumb around it, and despite everything in the world it is nice to have a hand to hold like this, no-one has ever . . .
"They'll send us for 'therapy'," Kurt says. "They'll - they can do anything to us. Reassign us. Blaine - I don't want someone else, I don't, I - I like you and - and - and what if he didn't care -?"
Blaine holds his hand and looks across at him and Kurt stares back, and forces himself not to cry. Lamplight on his skin like dusty gold, and his eyes are caramel-brown and so full on Kurt's; there won't be anyone else like him. Kurt hates this system but if it got him Blaine then what fight can he put up? He can't hate Blaine for the system any more than Blaine can hate him for it, and he doesn't think he could hate Blaine if he wanted to, anyway. Blaine closes his fingers closer around Kurt's. "I don't want them to split us up." he says, and he sounds sure about that, at least. "I - I just can't see how I can keep you safe by doing that to you -"
"We just have to, we just -"
"I can't."
"But we have to."
"I physically can't."
Kurt slumps his head back, puts his hand over his eyes. He says quietly, "I don't know what to do."
There's a pause, and then Blaine's other hand closes around Kurt's too. "I really like you," Blaine says, urgently. "Kurt, I really, really do. I'm so glad it was you today, this - we could make this work, couldn't we? Living together and - and everything -"
It occurs to Kurt, distant and certain, that Blaine would make an incredible father. His throat goes solid and hard. "Yes." he says. Like he is stupid enough to think that he could ever meet someone better than Blaine. It's not only that, though, not Blaine compared to other people, just Blaine, sort of dorky and sweet and enthusiastic and considerate, Kurt can see how their days would work, how their lives would so neatly fold and cup each other's. "We could . . . we could."
"Wouldn't they understand? If we just need . . . time, or . . ."
"I don't know." I doubt it. Assignations are there to control sex, to contain sex. Sex means penetration of one partner by the other. An assignation without sex -
"That last court case in the news," Kurt says dully. "That asexual girl who requested an asexual partner. So they wouldn't have to." He shakes his head. "You know what happened. They'll never let them. They'll never let us . . ."
". . . it's not that . . . that I would never want to. I just need the time, but one day . . ." Blaine looks up from their hands to Kurt's eyes, suddenly horrified. "-do you not - not ever want to -? That was so presumptuous of me, I'm sorry, you don't have to do anything for me that you don't want to-"
"I don't know," Kurt cuts him off with. "I don't know, Blaine. I spent so long - dreading tonight - I couldn't even think about the rest of my life." He stares at him, dark eyes, endearingly odd eyebrows, and something in him loosens a knot he'd never known was there. He admits, slow and difficult, "I've never - I've really never liked anyone the way I like you. You're."
He has to stop at that, just stare at him, he doesn't know the words for it. Blaine swallows, says, "Would it be okay if I kissed you? Just kissed you."
Kurt finds that his eyes are already on Blaine's mouth, he has to put them on his eyes again. The word comes on the second attempt; "Yes."
Blaine looks at his mouth, puts a hand to the side of Kurt's face, gently cupping his jaw. He looks at his eyes again. Then he leans in, eyes coming closed, and Kurt's eyes close themselves when his mouth presses his, it's no conscious decision, his entire body just slips into the flow of the kiss like he knows it. Blaine's mouth over his, sure and searching, his lips pull Kurt's a little and when he breaks back (the tiny noise it makes grabs something so strangely fierce in Kurt's chest) his mouth presses again like it needs to, softly at the side of Kurt's mouth, and as Kurt's lips try to follow he lifts his head, blinks his eyes back open, drowsy-wondering dark.
Kurt's hand is on his cheek. When did Kurt put his hand on his cheek?
They stare at one another for a long, long moment.
It's some time after midnight when they give up trying. Three hours of kissing, which is nice, so nice, so so utterly utterly perfect, they even make timid attempts at tongues, but when they try for anything further something stills in the both of them. Blaine very gingerly puts his hand on Kurt's waist and Kurt's body freezes and Blaine's fingers start back. Kurt tries to touch him back and his hands are shaking. Between eleven forty-six and eleven fifty-five he cries again, sodden and aching with it, because he tried to move towards touching Blaine between the legs and neither of them responded well. Blaine wraps his arms around him, kisses the top of his head, says nothing. There's not a lot to say.
"Just try in the morning," Blaine says, now the lamp's off and the room is huge with dark around them. "Before she comes, we can, we can try."
"What if we can't?"
"Sometimes I just wake up with one anyway, we can try to use that. Oh god that sounds - I don't want to do this to you. Use you."
"Blaine we have to. They'll . . ."
"We'll think of something. In the morning."
The room is huge with dark around them, and they're two boys away from home and alone but for each other. Blaine's hand touches Kurt's arm, and Kurt shuffles forward, presses himself aching with exhaustion into Blaine's offered arms; they sleep too tangled to care about blood-starved limbs, and in the morning Kurt grimaces and stretches deadened legs down the bed, and Blaine lifts the covers, looks down.
They contemplate the absolute lack of erection they have to work with.
It's the sickest relief in the world, it really is, it's no relief at all, they don't know if what happens next is even worse. "Just do it," Kurt says, closing his hands in the sheets. "I don't care. Just - just do whatever you have to do, just do it, please."
Blaine puts his face into the pillow, says into it, "This is the start of the rest of our lives. Do you really want it to be - be this, me holding you open and fighting to keep an erection -?"
Kurt wets his lips, stares at the side of Blaine's buried head, reaches out and very gently rubs at his head through his hair, just above his ear, like petting a dog. He whispers, "I'll make breakfast."
The rest of it.
Disclaimer: Neither my characters nor even my plot.
Rating: NC-17, mostly for smut, though lots of adult issues are discussed.
Warnings and spoilers: Okay, no spoilers beyond season two because we're batshit AU. Warnings? This is based off what I'm assuming was originally a kink meme prompt (which I never never never intended to write and exists only because it literally would not shut up in my head and I have an exam on Friday, I *need* my head right now) - I've never seen the original prompt, though I've read a lot of variations on it; in a dystopian world, arranged marriages are the norm and consummation is obligatory. There is obviously a lot of scope for squick in there; my primary warning is that we spend a lot of this fic *discussing* consent, although it contains no actual non-con and nothing I write will. It's a massive squick for me, so obviously I'm not going there. There will also be a fairly epic author's note under the cut ^^;
Summary: Some computer somewhere threw streams of data together that turned into Kurt and Blaine under one roof, made them the rest of the other's life. Assignations are compulsory; who's naïve enough to hope for love?
Note: I will try to keep this relatively brief! I have absolutely no idea where this fic concept originally came from, and it is a work of absolute evil genius. The *scale* of issues it brings up is just immense. It contains issues I'm not always comfortable thinking about but being *forced* to think about them (this fic is not something I wanted to write ^^;) can be quite fruitful. The particular slant I went for here was that all 'marriage' is compulsory at a particular age, I think the original prompt was just for gay marriage (?), because a society heterosexist enough to force that is likely heterosexist to go further (casual misogyny is also part of forcing particular 'gender' roles onto people). The people who define what sexuality is, define what sex is, get to define what sexual dysfunction is, get to make it sound like they're *helping people* by making them do things they don't want to do; it is a seriously, seriously disturbing scenario and gives a really alarming look at some real world matters too. Plus I do just *like* a good dystopia, I read Fahrenheit 451 as a teenager and it was one of those life-skewing books, like, I know that humanity can be that, but I hope to god that we can be that as well. Which is why this story is largely about trying to own something that the powers that be have tried to take from you: because it's *them*, and I know they would always make it work for each other.
The most fun I had with this plot was rewriting Disney movies in my head so they were actually propaganda pieces for assigned marriages. True story. Now, fic.
Kurt has a pamphlet about the night before his assignation. It tells him that it's likely that he'll feel nervous, because he's about to meet the person that he's going to spend the rest of his life with. It tells him that every assignation is different for every person, that love has to be worked at, it may not happen immediately but it will, if he makes it. It tells him to refer to another pamphlet about the assignation night itself.
He's put that pamphlet at the very bottom of the last bag he packed, and he's still as aware of it as if it's emitting a constant high note, keeping his sinews tight.
So he sits on the edge of his bed, not his bed for longer than tonight, with pamphlets on the covers next to him, and he compresses it all down so small and tight inside, crushes it down like coal pressed into something diamond-hard and painful in his guts. There is no way around it. There is no avoiding it. These things can only be endured.
He blinks at his ceiling for a while, until the tears die back.
His dad knocks twice before he pushes open the door and Kurt looks across at him, and swallows. His dad walks across, looks down at them and then pushes the pamphlets to one side so that he can sit next to Kurt on the bed, while Kurt looks at the carpet, and focuses on keeping his breathing steady.
"Everyone's scared," his dad says quietly. "Hell, I thought my life was over. But - but I got real lucky in my assignations, Kurt. I - I want that for you too."
The tears are so hot they hurt but he contains them, swallows again hard and blinks and blinks and says roughly, "I know." Kurt's the one who encouraged him towards his second assignation, less than a year ago; Kurt's mom had died so long ago, and Kurt would be assigned soon, and his dad would be better getting used to a new life without Kurt in it as soon as possible. And yes, Carole is lovely, and yes, Kurt's dad got lucky twice. But.
He wants to whimper, Dad I don't want this I don't ever want this -
His dad puts an arm around him, squeezes his shoulder. Kurt blinks and blinks and blinks oh god and his dad says, "It's gonna be okay, buddy. Just - just, whatever happens, you'll make it work. It's what becoming an adult's about."
Kurt sucks his breath in through his nose, keeps his eyes on the ceiling, blinks and blinks.
He's been assigned, in every sense. They've allocated him a partner and more than that a role; Kurt Hummel, not that that name will belong to him for much longer, will be the primary caregiver in his new 'family' unit. He hasn't been allocated a gender, he knows that, gender itself has nothing to do with what they mean, he's been allocated a role. He has a very particular pamphlet relating to it. What will be expected of him.
There will be a kit in the bathroom he must use, afterwards, for proof.
And he wants to say, Dad -
He swallows again, and lifts a hand, blots with the heel of it at the underneaths of his eyes because the tears are making the skin feel raw. He can't say it, not out loud, he physically couldn't get it out right now and it wouldn't change anything anyway, he's been assigned to some guy he's never met before, some man he is legally obliged to - to let -
And there is no-one, no-one he can turn to, no-one he can look to for help, this is happening tomorrow night and there's no-one he can sob he made me to because the man will be obliged to make him, neither of them get a say in this, but all Kurt can think of is some man he doesn't know holding him down -
Non-consensual sex has been eliminated by changing the definition of consent: sex with a non-assigned partner is by definition an illegal activity. Sex with an assigned partner is obligatory. Assignations must be consummated. And Kurt is supposed to be grateful for the decade-young law that means he can be assigned to someone of his preferred gender, like that makes it better. Like it makes a difference if he doesn't want it anyway -
His dad cups his cheek like he's a child again, and thumbs the tears away, and his jaw moves in clenched silence for a second before he says, low and rough, "The tank's full. We've got your last bag for tomorrow still." Kurt blinks at him, lifts a hand to cover his nose as he sniffs. "Could make it to the border, maybe. Get over into Canada-"
"Dad," Kurt chokes, he wants to laugh, oh god. "Dad, your heart, we can't go on a cross-country car chase -"
"Screw my heart." his dad says, and his voice is getting choked. "You think this is doin' my heart any good?"
Kurt swallows it down, and again, and it hurts, like swallowing furniture. "What about Carole and Finn?"
"They could come with us."
"What about the tyre shop, what about your lives? Dad - I get it, it's fine, this is just what happens, I - Dad you can't do something insane for me, they'll lock us all up."
"Kurt, the face you got on, they're doin' that to you anyway."
Kurt closes his eyes, wet lashes on his skin, then takes in a little breath and lifts his head. "This happens to everyone. I don't get to be special. I might even . . ." He picks at his own fingers on his lap. "You did get lucky. Twice."
His dad says quietly, "Three times." and hugs him in again, squeezing his shoulder, and it's the last night that Kurt's allowed to be a child, so he cries.
*
They still call them weddings. They like the idea of romance, if it's controlled. At the Assignation Office Kurt and his family - Finn's face is entirely rigid, he and Rachel have requested each other for their assignation but they haven't had the verdict yet and all of this, Kurt knows, is merely sinking home for him what they will really really have to do so very soon - sit in one of the waiting rooms; there will be another room with another family in it, and another boy feeling sick to his stomach.
Probably a boy. A reassigned widower, maybe, god knows what age. A man from a failed assignation, never consummated, having gone through the 'therapeutic programme' that should 'fix his problem'; refusal to consummate is a crime, and asexuality is too dangerous to be allowed, anyone could claim asexuality just to avoid an assignation, so no-one has the right to claim it at all. Or someone reassigned because his partner was 'dysfunctional'. It could be anyone in that other room. Anyone at all with any history at all, and Kurt feels stirrings of sympathy, empathy-anxiety on top of his own misery for what they might be going through -
But then he remembers what they're going to do to him, and he feels dropped down somewhere dark again, and alone.
The Assignation Officer at the desk stamps one of his forms and initials it. "Can you confirm that you are Kurt Hummel?"
Kurt closes his eyes, manages a little nod, opens his mouth and nothing comes out. He swallows, wets his lips, manages to whisper, "Yes."
"And you are aware of the role you've been assigned and what will be expected of you?"
He feels the blood drain, prickling, out through the tiny veins in his face. His voice is a bare breath; "Yes."
"You understand that consummation is expected within the first twenty-four hours. Failure to consummate can lead to therapeutic intervention or criminal conviction."
". . . yes."
"Could you please sign here and here to confirm that you understand?"
Kurt's shivery signature is spider-web thin on the hungry white space of the document. He hears his dad let his breath out on one of the chairs at the edge of the room, hard through his hand. Kurt swallows, and plays with the pen a little.
"Reassignation is possible only in cases of extreme domestic abuse or sexual dysfunction. You will have to pass through Office-sanctioned mediation before reassignation will be considered. Please sign here to indicate that you understand."
Kurt wonders, very small and distant while he signs, what they count as 'extreme' domestic abuse. What do they overlook as acceptable abuse, in a system where sex can't be refused?
The Officer gathers the papers and signs beside all of Kurt's signatures, then stamps them again. "You now need to sign in the presence of your partner. Please wait here."
She leaves through the door behind the desk, and Kurt folds his hands in each other, squeezing the knuckles, trying to get some life back into the numb lumps they've become. A chair scrapes behind him and his dad puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezes hard. "You doin' okay?"
Kurt nods, even though he isn't. He even manages to force the thin shape of a smile onto his mouth, because his dad doesn't need to think about Kurt with his face like this all night when Kurt's under some other man's roof and they both know what's happening to him. But the door ahead opens, and Kurt and his dad look up at the Officer, who gives a quick smile. "If the family would like to come through?"
She steps aside to let them pass, Kurt can see the larger room through there, the few rows of chairs, a desk at the front with windows behind it. Assignations never have large audiences, they only need minimal legal witnessing - close family is usually more than enough. Kurt plays with the pen a little, the sickness rising and roiling in his stomach, and he thinks, I wonder how many people actually throw up at their assignations, catching Finn's eye as he walks out, Finn looking utterly terrified on Kurt's behalf. It could almost, almost, be funny.
The Officer says, "Give them a minute to settle down." and checks her watch, looks up at the display above the door, unlit. Kurt swallows and swallows, mouth too dry to breathe, and he could ask her, if he could choke it out, Who is he, what's he like -?
But he can't make any words come, and he won't give the world the satisfaction of his begging now anyway. He holds his back very straight, and says nothing at all.
The light above the door flicks on, after too long, after nothing like the desperate life's worth of time that he needs.
She opens the door again, gestures him through. The smile is bright and professional on her face as he scrapes his chair back, puts the pen down with a hard click, walks on too-long cotton-jointed legs up to her, then through into the room behind her. He feels more than sees the presence of his dad at the front. To the side -
Someone else is walking into the room parallel to him, at the other side of the chairs, through another door. He wavers but can't look, just stares dead ahead at the final desk in front of the chairs, where there are two more Assignation Officers, and their paperwork.
Kurt walks up to them, keeping his eyes exactly forwards, his heart beating somewhere high above his head, too high, not enough oxygen. The first thing he notices about the other man approaching the desk -
- is that Kurt doesn't have to look up to see the top of his head; the man Kurt is being given helpless over to is actually, really, quite short. Kurt has to glance at him when they both reach the desk at the same time, and he receives back a blankly terrified look from a boy his age with carefully slicked back hair and huge brown eyes underneath alarmed, alarming eyebrows, looking like all he is trying to do in the world is not whimper out loud. He is nothing that Kurt expected. He's an actual human being. Kurt doesn't know how to breathe out in that second.
Then they pull their chairs out, and they sit.
One of the Assignation Officers reads out the law, the contract they're entering into and the consequences of breaking it, but Kurt's only half aware of him, he's mostly trying to find the courage to slide his eyes further sideways than the boy's hand, which is clenched a little shakily on the edge of the desk. Kurt manages to drag his eyes back along his arm to his face and the boy looks back, manages a one-cornered twitch of a smile, and Kurt has to look ahead again. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't want to spend the rest of his life hating this person, he's going to share a house and a bed with him until death or something worse happens, but they both know what's going to happen tonight and Kurt cannot, cannot be obliged to do anything but endure it -
They have to take each other's hands to exchange rings, and Kurt is very shy, very embarrassed of the other boy's skin. The ring is cold around his finger. They sign each other's and then their own forms, one last time. These are countersigned by the two Assignation Officers. And then they're congratulated, and they call Kurt 'Mr Anderson', and the tears in that second blind him.
*
They have fifteen minutes until the next assignation is performed, and the boy Kurt's signed off to for the rest of his life turns in his chair and introduces himself. "I'm - Blaine. I . . . hi."
It is simply the strangest situation in all of the world. "Kurt," Kurt says, because he doesn't trust himself with too many syllables. "Hi."
Blaine looks at him and smiles awkwardly, looks at him, and Kurt looks away, folds his arms close around himself, doesn't know what to say or do. There's talking behind them and his dad walks up, says, "You gonna call me - soon as you can?"
Kurt opens his mouth and looks at Blaine, because that's no longer Kurt's call, Kurt has a role, and Blaine gets to decide these things. But Blaine is having his hair further smoothed by a dark-haired woman murmuring to him, while he ducks his head like an embarrassed child and flicks his eyes to the wall. "Yes." Kurt says, because he'll lock himself in the bathroom with the telephone if he has to but he needs to talk to his dad. He has never, never felt so alone before, like the tether to the rest of his life has been cut: nothing will ever be what it was again.
There's a car for them, an Assignation Officer to drive them to their allocated housing. The key is given to Blaine, and Kurt says nothing because he can't say anything, feeling too sick to properly resent anything while Blaine keeps his chin dug in a little, head always a little low, as if ashamed. Kurt gets one last hug from Carole and Finn, and one last bone-squeezing hug from his dad (don't cry don't cry don't cry) and he doesn't want to let go, if he never lets go then they can't make him get in that car -
But his dad's hand strokes down his back, and they both know.
Blaine's already parted from his parents, from what Kurt assumes is his older brother and his wife, and is standing by the car door waiting for Kurt, still looking awkward. So with a small gracious bend of his head - thank you for your consideration seeing as you do now own me - Kurt climbs in first, and his new husband (oh fuck that word to mean this) follows him, and closes the door behind them.
Kurt strains his neck looking out of the back window, until a corner takes his family from him for good.
There's a screen between them and the driver, so presumably they're supposed to talk. Kurt turns the ring on his finger with his thumb, and Blaine is jigging his knees with his palms on them, staring straight ahead. His entire body thrums, something not quite contained, until he comes out in a gasp of breath with, "You don't have to, this, this 'role' thing, I don't - believe in that. I don't - I'm not in charge of you, I'm not, I wouldn't ever try to control you, okay? I -" He rubs his forehead, and he looks absurdly young, and Kurt feels absurdly young. "I didn't expect . . . I sort of thought it would be the other way around anyway."
Talking shouldn't feel so difficult. "It's pretty much exactly what I expected," Kurt admits, and even manages to make it sound like a joke. Blaine looks across at him, smiles, a little. Kurt would like to smile back but he doesn't have the strength for it; now there's quiet, he's just exhausted. The stress has knocked him down and he's too weak to fight anything else. He swallows. "But still, I . . . the fact that I knew it was coming doesn't mean I don't . . ." He stops. He is not going to say 'thank you' to someone for not treating him like their property. He can't be expected to be grateful for it.
"I know, it's stupid, it doesn't matter. We can just ignore all that."
Something slick and black and slimy is alive inside Kurt's stomach. "We can't ignore all of it."
Blaine is silent, and Kurt doesn't look at him. Then Blaine says, "We're both going to be the biggest part of the rest of each other's lives. We . . . I really want this to be - okay. Good, I mean, if we can manage it. I want us to get along. Um."
Kurt keeps his arms folded around himself, and shrugs with one shoulder. "There's no reason why we shouldn't." Except that you are going to do this to me and we both know it.
"So . . . we should probably get to know each other. Um. Sometimes I snore, I've been told that. Sorry."
"I have an hour long bathroom routine. It's non-negotiable."
"Okay. I can't cook to save my life."
"I'm supposed to be doing that anyway."
"We could share. We could get - books, or something."
"I'm happy to cook. I - enjoy cooking." Please let me do something that feels normal to me.
"Okay, that's cool. I guess I'll get into enjoying doing the dishes."
Kurt looks across and Blaine's smiling, a little nervously, and Kurt looks at him - hopefully raised eyes and hopefully raised eyebrows, and there is something strangely adorable about his nose, and Kurt realises two things that choke inside him. One is that in any other circumstances, he would find this boy almost appallingly attractive.
Two is that in any other circumstances, Kurt would really like this boy. He would want to be his friend. He would like him. Mostly because, in any other circumstances, this boy wouldn't be not only legally permitted but legally compelled to fuck Kurt tonight, whatever Kurt feels about it.
Attractive and likeable are completely meaningless if this is going to happen either way.
Kurt swallows. "I like to sing. If that wouldn't - annoy you."
Blaine's eyes light. "I do too! No, that would be - amazing, no, you should totally sing. We can do duets!"
Kurt could almost laugh and maybe it shows on his face, because Blaine is finally beginning to look just a little bit relaxed, his grin falling looser. "I like watching sports but if there's something more important on I don't mind you changing the channel."
"I - don't watch sports but, I don't know, maybe you could teach me what any of it means."
"Trade you for cooking lessons," Blaine offers.
Kurt shrugs that one uncertain shoulder again, and rubs his arms. "Deal."
". . . hey. You know - your assignation forms? That long one we filled in. I'm trying to work out why they matched us, I seriously hope they didn't actually pull our names out of a hat or something. What . . . did you put for the most important thing you wanted in a partner?"
Kurt remembers the exact words, exactly how they looked with the cursor flashing at the end of the line of text. "What did you put?"
". . . someone I could be friends with."
Kurt rubs his arms. He stares at his shoes. He licks his lips a little.
Under any other circumstances, he would really like this boy.
He says, very dry, "Someone who wouldn't hurt me."
Blaine is silent, and it's a long, dragging pause before he says, very quiet, "I won't."
Which he must know is a lie, the rage claws up impotent in Kurt's stomach, he must know that for the lie it is and how dare he start the joke of the rest of their lives with that. Kurt stares out of the window after that, white-faced and breathing tightly through his nose, and they don't say anything until they're out in the neighbourhood of starter homes for newly assigned couples, close to the college, close to the main bus routes, everything so neatly thought out and so considerately planned.
Boys in Kurt's school used to joke about these boxy little houses, the first places they would all live out from their parents' homes. In the locker rooms, no teachers present, they called the double beds in their future bedrooms 'rape racks'.
And Kurt can't cry, because it's not like it would fix anything anyway.
*
Their new home is identical to all of the others; difference is something they will have to achieve, if they're successful in their lives. Grassed yard, empty dirt for flower beds, white front door. Blaine hands Kurt the key, and their Assignation Officer stands behind them, arms full of files, while Kurt tries with unco-operative hands to open the lock.
Inside it's small, serviceable, neutral. Hallway, staircase, kitchen to the left, living room to the right. Their Officer gives them a quick tour of a bland little house with all their boxes piled neatly in it. It feels so strange to walk into just one bedroom, with one big bed in it. The bathroom is small but not too disgraceful in terms of natural light. There's one bare little room the Officer recommends to them for a study, until they're ready to think about adoption.
(Where do adoptive children come from? Criminal parents, who let lust step them out of their assignations, or underage parents, who will be punished for what they enjoyed out of assignation. Abortion is not an option. Birth control is not available before assignation. What a joyous way, Kurt thinks, cold inside, to receive a baby into their lives. The baby can't help it, but knowing that your child could have been torn away from parents not willing to give it up . . . ?)
Then she leaves them with a further stack of papers and pamphlets, and tells them to relax and maybe unpack tomorrow, when she'll be back to 'check on them'. They both know what she'll check. Before she closes the door she tells them to enjoy their evening and smiles, which makes Kurt want to throw something at her (knives). He stands there in the hallway of a house he's never been to before with a boy he met two hours ago, and when Blaine says quietly, "Wow." it echoes off the empty walls like the house is a great deal bigger around them than it actually is.
Kurt draws his breath in, lets it shaking out. "I should start on dinner. They gave us the basics, I can at least make omelettes. Or something. If you - want."
"I don't know, I'm tired. Aren't you? We could just order pizza, watch a movie."
A pause, while they contemplate that they have no idea what taste in movies they might share. "Okay," Blaine says, and ticks off on his fingers, "anything Disney, anything with superheroes in it, anything funny or sad if you promise not to mock if I cry, or sci-fi or - actually kind of anything, I'm pretty easy to please."
"Lucky me," Kurt murmurs without even realising it, then sucks his breath in. "Anything, really, I don't mind. Disney." Disney is safe. "What's your favourite?"
"Lilo and Stitch. Elvis and space aliens!"
Kurt looks at his face, his lit-up little boy's face, and thinks, Under any other circumstances -
They order pizza, which involves more polite, awkward negotiation of toppings. While they unpack DVD collections from boxes (they will have to get rid of a lot of duplicates in the merging; science fiction and a handful of romcoms aside, they more or less share a DVD collection) onto the living room shelves, they discuss small, harmless things. Where their things will go. Lamps. Shades of paint, as soon as possible. "Maybe I can reupholster the sofa," Kurt says, eyeing it disdainfully, and Blaine grins and shakes his head as he pushes a box set of Star Wars DVDs onto the shelf and those at least they haven't duplicated . . .
The pizza arrives, and they eat in the living room, pizza box open on the coffee table, surrounded by stacked boxes. They watch Lilo and Stitch and it's all weirdly normal, weirdly nice, until Blaine goes to the bathroom to bring Kurt tissues when he cries like it hurts first just at the movie until that jogs further crying out of him because because because
"I know it's early," Blaine says when the movie's finished. "I'm just - beat, I just want to go to bed, if it's okay with you. You don't - have to yet, just because I am, um."
Nausea, cold and black inside, the rise and suck of an arctic tide around his insides. "No," Kurt whispers, numb lips. "I'm tired too."
There is no fighting it, after all.
Blaine offers him the bathroom first. Kurt stares at his own white face in the mirror and he doesn't look anything like someone who's okay with this. It's not that he tries to drag things out, he hasn't got enough of his mind together to try to delay, his hands are just awkward and difficult and he keeps forgetting what he's doing, staring into space and lost because, because, because.
The kit there for Kurt's later usage is in the cabinet above the sink, next to the toothpaste.
In their bedroom (this ought to be a joke, except that nothing about it is funny) Blaine stands up from unpacking clothes into a bottom drawer, says, "Um, do you - have a side?"
Kurt stares at him and shakes his head, then looks at the bed and opens and closes his mouth a little, clutching his clothes to himself, feeling like he's naked in his pyjamas. "The window?"
Blaine gives a quick smile and picks up an overnight bag, and closes the bathroom door behind himself. Kurt swallows.
He puts his clothes into the laundry basket, puts his hand cream and lip balm on the bedside table. He opens the drawer and there's lubricant in there and he closes it again. No condoms. Birth control is restricted to pills, and they already signed contracts today swearing their virginity and assuring their fidelity.
He sits up in 'his' side of the bed, and it doesn't matter how much he washed himself in that bathroom, he doesn't think that it's possible to feel clean right now. He slips in and out of consciousness, sitting bolt upright with his mind drifting in and out of focus whenever he comes too close to not being able to bear it. He doesn't know how much time passes. Too much. Not enough.
The bathroom door opens. The light clicks off.
"It's a good shower," Blaine says, and puts his clothes in the laundry basket. "I guess it's a nice house, it's not like we need much right now."
Kurt sits silent, fingers squeezing fingers in his lap.
Blaine rubs a hand at his hair, looser now after a shower, a frizz of dark curls; he's wearing a t-shirt and pyjama pants and Kurt can see the hair on his arms, how really real Blaine's body is strikes him like a shock, how physically there Blaine is, muscles and skin and bones and hair, the weight of him, his solidity. And the tears work their way up again but oh god there's no point now, he's come past the point where that could ever achieve anything -
Blaine stands there next to the bed, rubbing his wrist, not looking at Kurt. He draws a little breath in. He lets it out again. "I'm not really," he says, and stops. Kurt blinks and blinks, and makes himself look at him, and Blaine squeezes at the bridge of his nose and his eyebrows nip and then loosen; the gesture takes less than a second and as his hand falls Kurt realises, watching his face do just that, that he could fall in love with this boy. He's a real person, he's not anything he represents, he's a human being who does really beautiful things with his face and Kurt could love him, very easily, love him very hard. But.
"I know what's supposed to happen next," Blaine says, like he's forcing this out of himself, very serious, not quite like his voice when he was chatting about movies he likes and how they seriously will need more shelving, like he has to say this so he's saying it. It's an adult, controlled, false voice. "I'm - really not very comfortable with it. I know - I do know that we have to. But if - if it's okay with you I really, really want to take this as slowly as we can, it - just, it shouldn't, it - oh god."
Because Kurt is crying, now, helplessly into his hands, crying for the sick joke that this is, that neither of them want it and they still have to do it. Blaine stands there helplessly while Kurt's body rocks through the tears and then Blaine says, "Can I - I'm sorry, I don't - want to make you feel uncomfortable but, but we're supposed to be here for each other now, I'm here to comfort you, can I -?"
His hand touches, very gingerly, Kurt's arm. Kurt just lets his breath shake and shudder, as Blaine climbs onto the mattress and it tilts with his weight, and he sits next to Kurt and puts his arms around him and hugs him in like a friend. And it shouldn't be comforting, getting hugged by someone who is obliged to fuck you whether you want it or not, but it's not Blaine's fault any more than it's Kurt's so he lets him, leans into his side and cries himself weak, until Blaine plucks a couple of tissues from the box by the bed, and helps Kurt wipe his face off.
"I don't want to," Kurt whispers, squeezing the tissues into a tight-wadded ball in his hand. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know it's not your fault, I just don't want to."
"I know," Blaine says helplessly, rubbing at his back. "I - I didn't know it would be like this, I - we've got to spend the rest of our lives together and I don't want the first night to be this. Oh god that came out sounding wrong. Okay, we do have to spend the rest of our lives together, but I really am glad it's you, do you - know that? As soon as I saw you at the Assignation Office I - I don't even know, I felt like if this whole thing is just some stupid lottery we're stuck in then at least I really, seriously won."
The burst of breath escapes Kurt almost like a laugh. "It's not you," he says, and, very awkwardly, touches Blaine's bare arm. "You're nice," he says to it. "You really are. I like you." Small, small words. "I just. I don't want to."
Blaine rubs his back, just a little, and stares at the foot of the bed. Kurt closes his eyes, lets his breath out. He says, "I know we have to. It's not your fault."
Blaine shakes his head, and keeps on staring at the foot of the bed.
Kurt licks his lips, says, "Blaine, we have to. It - it might be alright. It . . ."
"I don't think I can."
"What do you -?"
Blaine looks down at himself, between the legs. Kurt follows his gaze without thinking and looks away immediately, face flushing; he could see the outline of Blaine through his pyjamas but - but he's not hard. Not even part of the way there. Blaine climbs underneath the covers at his side and sits there, wrists loosely crossed on top of the duvet. "I'm sorry," he says, very low. "It's not you. It's not that there's anything wrong with you. This just isn't a situation where I think I can make myself want to."
Kurt is silent, then wipes his eyes again, and the trash can is waiting discreetly there beside the bedside table for the tissues. They expected them to need tissues.
He literally hadn't even thought of this. He'd entertained a few brief fantasies of his partner finding him so hideous that he didn't want him, but they had paled into such insignificance beside the fantasy of his partner not caring and doing it anyway that he didn't really linger on them. A partner who doesn't want to do this to Kurt any more than Kurt wants it done to him for this reason had never entered his mind. That his partner would be as unsure, unready, afraid as he is, simply hadn't registered as a possibility.
He's been unfair, he thinks, looking at their arms above the covers, their hands with their new rings, both of them self-conscious and scared. Kurt's role had been assigned to him by an outside party but so was Blaine's, and he really doesn't need Kurt assigning him the role of rapist on top of it. Neither of them want to be doing this. But . . .
Kurt reaches across, and touches the back of Blaine's hand. Blaine looks up at him. "She'll come back tomorrow," he whispers. "She'll check. There's a - thing I have to use, a -" He can't bring himself to say it. Blaine turns his hand, wrapping it gently around Kurt's, and he rubs his eye.
"I know. It was in my information leaflets too." He swallows, and meets Kurt's eye. "It said my partner might appreciate my 'help and consideration' with it."
Kurt closes his eyes for a second, and squeezes Blaine's hand. "Blaine, we have to."
"Could we fake it somehow?"
The shudder must show at least a little on Kurt's face. "There are other ways they can check if they think we have."
Blaine is silent. Kurt feels his hand, warm and dry in his, and shifts his thumb around it, and despite everything in the world it is nice to have a hand to hold like this, no-one has ever . . .
"They'll send us for 'therapy'," Kurt says. "They'll - they can do anything to us. Reassign us. Blaine - I don't want someone else, I don't, I - I like you and - and - and what if he didn't care -?"
Blaine holds his hand and looks across at him and Kurt stares back, and forces himself not to cry. Lamplight on his skin like dusty gold, and his eyes are caramel-brown and so full on Kurt's; there won't be anyone else like him. Kurt hates this system but if it got him Blaine then what fight can he put up? He can't hate Blaine for the system any more than Blaine can hate him for it, and he doesn't think he could hate Blaine if he wanted to, anyway. Blaine closes his fingers closer around Kurt's. "I don't want them to split us up." he says, and he sounds sure about that, at least. "I - I just can't see how I can keep you safe by doing that to you -"
"We just have to, we just -"
"I can't."
"But we have to."
"I physically can't."
Kurt slumps his head back, puts his hand over his eyes. He says quietly, "I don't know what to do."
There's a pause, and then Blaine's other hand closes around Kurt's too. "I really like you," Blaine says, urgently. "Kurt, I really, really do. I'm so glad it was you today, this - we could make this work, couldn't we? Living together and - and everything -"
It occurs to Kurt, distant and certain, that Blaine would make an incredible father. His throat goes solid and hard. "Yes." he says. Like he is stupid enough to think that he could ever meet someone better than Blaine. It's not only that, though, not Blaine compared to other people, just Blaine, sort of dorky and sweet and enthusiastic and considerate, Kurt can see how their days would work, how their lives would so neatly fold and cup each other's. "We could . . . we could."
"Wouldn't they understand? If we just need . . . time, or . . ."
"I don't know." I doubt it. Assignations are there to control sex, to contain sex. Sex means penetration of one partner by the other. An assignation without sex -
"That last court case in the news," Kurt says dully. "That asexual girl who requested an asexual partner. So they wouldn't have to." He shakes his head. "You know what happened. They'll never let them. They'll never let us . . ."
". . . it's not that . . . that I would never want to. I just need the time, but one day . . ." Blaine looks up from their hands to Kurt's eyes, suddenly horrified. "-do you not - not ever want to -? That was so presumptuous of me, I'm sorry, you don't have to do anything for me that you don't want to-"
"I don't know," Kurt cuts him off with. "I don't know, Blaine. I spent so long - dreading tonight - I couldn't even think about the rest of my life." He stares at him, dark eyes, endearingly odd eyebrows, and something in him loosens a knot he'd never known was there. He admits, slow and difficult, "I've never - I've really never liked anyone the way I like you. You're."
He has to stop at that, just stare at him, he doesn't know the words for it. Blaine swallows, says, "Would it be okay if I kissed you? Just kissed you."
Kurt finds that his eyes are already on Blaine's mouth, he has to put them on his eyes again. The word comes on the second attempt; "Yes."
Blaine looks at his mouth, puts a hand to the side of Kurt's face, gently cupping his jaw. He looks at his eyes again. Then he leans in, eyes coming closed, and Kurt's eyes close themselves when his mouth presses his, it's no conscious decision, his entire body just slips into the flow of the kiss like he knows it. Blaine's mouth over his, sure and searching, his lips pull Kurt's a little and when he breaks back (the tiny noise it makes grabs something so strangely fierce in Kurt's chest) his mouth presses again like it needs to, softly at the side of Kurt's mouth, and as Kurt's lips try to follow he lifts his head, blinks his eyes back open, drowsy-wondering dark.
Kurt's hand is on his cheek. When did Kurt put his hand on his cheek?
They stare at one another for a long, long moment.
It's some time after midnight when they give up trying. Three hours of kissing, which is nice, so nice, so so utterly utterly perfect, they even make timid attempts at tongues, but when they try for anything further something stills in the both of them. Blaine very gingerly puts his hand on Kurt's waist and Kurt's body freezes and Blaine's fingers start back. Kurt tries to touch him back and his hands are shaking. Between eleven forty-six and eleven fifty-five he cries again, sodden and aching with it, because he tried to move towards touching Blaine between the legs and neither of them responded well. Blaine wraps his arms around him, kisses the top of his head, says nothing. There's not a lot to say.
"Just try in the morning," Blaine says, now the lamp's off and the room is huge with dark around them. "Before she comes, we can, we can try."
"What if we can't?"
"Sometimes I just wake up with one anyway, we can try to use that. Oh god that sounds - I don't want to do this to you. Use you."
"Blaine we have to. They'll . . ."
"We'll think of something. In the morning."
The room is huge with dark around them, and they're two boys away from home and alone but for each other. Blaine's hand touches Kurt's arm, and Kurt shuffles forward, presses himself aching with exhaustion into Blaine's offered arms; they sleep too tangled to care about blood-starved limbs, and in the morning Kurt grimaces and stretches deadened legs down the bed, and Blaine lifts the covers, looks down.
They contemplate the absolute lack of erection they have to work with.
It's the sickest relief in the world, it really is, it's no relief at all, they don't know if what happens next is even worse. "Just do it," Kurt says, closing his hands in the sheets. "I don't care. Just - just do whatever you have to do, just do it, please."
Blaine puts his face into the pillow, says into it, "This is the start of the rest of our lives. Do you really want it to be - be this, me holding you open and fighting to keep an erection -?"
Kurt wets his lips, stares at the side of Blaine's buried head, reaches out and very gently rubs at his head through his hair, just above his ear, like petting a dog. He whispers, "I'll make breakfast."
The rest of it.