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Fic: Finders, Keepers
Title: Finders, Keepers
Fandom: Glee
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Kurt Hummel/Blaine Anderson; mentions of Santana Lopez and Rachel Berry
Summary: Kurt and Blaine technically tagged along on Blaine's dad's New York business trip so that they could tour college campuses, but the trip also has its fringe benefits. Like: an entire day spent roaming the city with Blaine. Even if Blaine isn't responding very gracefully to the unexpected attention that Kurt finds himself receiving.
Count: 4778 words
Notes: For the anon on Tumblr who requested fic where Kurt is flirted with and Blaine gets jealous. Also on Tumblr, someone mentioned the horrific idea of an "Auntie Tana" "anonymous" advice column and I ran with it; I can't remember who it was, but they deserve the credit for that one! This follows Possession Is Nine-Tenths of the Law, though it's designed to function as a stand-alone.
* * *
“Williamsburg?” Kurt says, his eyebrows raised precariously. “Williamsburg.” And then, all at once, his eyebrows lower. “We have a day in New York City entirely to ourselves, and you want to go to Williamsburg?”
Blaine laughs in that surprised, incredulous way that means he’s not sure if he should be offended. “What’s wrong with Williamsburg?”
After a year and five months of dating and nearly two years of friendship, Kurt has perfected a squinty judging look that he personally thinks of as: really, Blaine? really? He executes it now.
To Blaine’s credit, he has become increasingly immune to the look. “Come on,” he wheedles. He rolls over in the bed, the crisp hotel room linens crinkling under him, and he rests his chin on Kurt’s thigh. “We can hold hands on the subway…”
The absurd thing is that that is actually a tempting offer.
Kurt sighs down at him. “It’s called the Metro, Blaine,” but he reaches across the bed for his shirt, and Blaine kisses his hip and then happily agrees to visit Greenwich Village afterward.
Kurt still doesn’t know how Blaine talked his dad into this. Mr. Anderson is both closer to Blaine and much more at ease around Kurt than he used to be, but Kurt is fairly certain that Blaine’s dad is never going to be fully comfortable with the two of them. Kurt was the first tangible proof that Blaine is very, very gay, and Kurt himself is very, very gay. Mr. Anderson may have come a long way in the last year, but Kurt doesn’t think he’s ever going to get over that.
So the fact that Blaine managed to convince him to not only take Blaine to New York, but Kurt, too, and to take the extra step of talking to Kurt’s dad about it — it’s nothing short of a miracle. They’re supposedly here to look at colleges (Blaine’s top choice is Fordham; Kurt’s is NYU, for all that he wistfully considered applying to Juilliard with Rachel), but they spent Saturday, Sunday, and Monday in campus tour mode and now they’re free to do whatever they’d like until Thursday.
This was the part of the plan that gave Kurt’s dad the most pause, and in the end, it took the combined efforts of Kurt and Carole to break him down. Kurt loves Carole. Kurt always loves Carole, but after four days spent running around New York City with his boyfriend (and sometimes his boyfriend’s father, but that actually hasn’t been as bad as expected), Kurt really, really loves Carole. He has never been so happy to have a stepmother or to have been an honor roll, truthful-with-parents, disciplinary-action-free student. He and Blaine have proved themselves trustworthy, both together and separately, and it has led them to the nirvana of early morning hotel room sex (after Blaine’s dad left for a day of meetings in the Financial District and Blaine came barreling into Kurt’s room) and now an aboveground train track, rocking their way into Brooklyn.
Kurt has been trying not to look like a slack-jawed corn-fed yokel, but it was impossible not to stare at the M train’s view of Manhattan as they crossed the East River. He doesn’t understand how everyone else on the car (a motley assortment of people with several seats still free, give that it’s 10:30 on a Tuesday morning) could be so blase, reading newspapers and staring dully at smartphones. This is it, Kurt had thought, watching the sunlight glint off the maze of skyscrapers; this is where he belongs.
Now they’ve crossed into Brooklyn and the view is less transcendent — a jungle of concrete buildings and graffiti — but still unmistakably Big City, and Kurt is having a hard time not whipping his head from side to side to try to take in everything all at once.
Blaine is on the phone. “—tting off at Lorimer Street and Broadway, and we’re going to be in the area for a few hours,” Blaine says, because this was part of the deal if they were going to be allowed to run free: leaving Mr. Anderson messages about where they are and what they’re doing. “We’ll be back by dinner—” Kurt taps Blaine’s knee as they roll into the next station and he leans down to get a look at the station name on the board. He points at the doors when Blaine glances at him inquisitively, and grabs his bag. Blaine nods and gets up after him, finishing, “I’ll call when we’re leaving Brooklyn.” He ends the call and starts to turn toward Kurt.
The train grinds to a sudden, shuddering halt and Blaine clearly has not perfected the art of subway surfing just yet, because he’s flung into Kurt, who falls backward and frantically grabs the overhead bar with one hand and Blaine’s waist with his other arm.
“—My hero,” Blaine says, and they beam at each other, Blaine leaning against Kurt’s chest. In that moment, Kurt knows that he could kiss him and hardly anyone in the car would even glance up from their phones. From the look on Blaine’s face, a similar thought is crossing his mind; he starts to lean up and — the doors slide open, and Kurt jerks away so fast that Blaine nearly goes face-down on the bench seat.
“What are you doing?” Kurt asks, grabbing his arm and pulling him along. “We’re going to miss our stop.”
“I can’t believe I ever thought that I was the less romantic one in this relationship,” grumbles Blaine, but he’s laughing and he lets Kurt tug him off the train, across the platform, and down the stairs, so he can’t be too irritated.
On the street, Kurt pauses for a moment to get his bearings, sliding his favorite pair of vintage sunglasses on his nose. It’s August in New York and it is hot; the second that they stepped out of the air-conditioned train car, it was like being slapped in the face by a hot soggy dishtowel. Kurt is well-pleased with his selection of shorts-with-hanging-suspenders, boots, and a lightweight striped henley. It hadn’t been his first choice of outfit, but after weighing the forecast, he’d decided that — unfortunately for his stellar collection of coats, vests, and summer scarves — less would be more, and the heat is proving him correct. Blaine, meanwhile, looks like he stepped out of a J. Crew catalogue. Kurt gave up on him last year after a fruitless summer spent trying to convince him not to wear boat shoes without socks. He ultimately elected to ignore Blaine’s footwear choices and just revel in the fact that he has an incredibly attractive boyfriend whose picture belongs in the dictionary beside the word “preppy.”
Blaine ducks around behind him to his left side, so he won’t be hit by the bag on Kurt’s right hip, and he extends his hand. Kurt looks from his hand to his smiling face, and he smiles back and fits their hands together. He can’t even find it in himself to be all that annoyed that they’re standing across the street from a whole lot of construction and a sketchy-looking 24-hour deli grocery, under the elevated track as a train roars past overhead. “Well?” Kurt asks, lightly teasing and only a little wry. “Where to?”
“…You were right,” Blaine says; “that was the wrong line,” and Kurt sighs and pulls him along the sidewalk, toward where he knows there’s a downtown L stop about a mile up the street. His habit of making a vigorous study of the New York City public transportation system (and of pulling up route information on his phone while Blaine was wrongly insisting back in the hotel room that they needed to take the M to get to their destination) has finally paid off.
“Call your dad back,” he instructs. “Tell him that you were wrong and we’re going to be exiting the subway at Bedford Avenue and will be in that area, unless you’ve changed your mind about the entire Williamsburg venture.” He makes hopeful eyebrows.
“I just want to see some of the neighborhoods where we could potentially live,” Blaine cheerfully defends, but he’s pulling out his phone and following along willingly. To Kurt’s eye, he looks a little relieved that someone else has taken over the directions.
That gives Kurt pause. “I thought we agreed that we’re both living in the dorms,” he says, careful. “The ‘full college experience’ and all of that.”
“We won’t always be living in dorms,” he says absently while dialing his dad’s number, like it’s obvious and that simple statement didn’t just make heat crawl up into Kurt’s face. Kurt thinks that they’re still going to be together in four years, as much as he knows that some people find it naïve, and makes his heart beat harder whenever he receives reminders that Blaine feels the same way.
Of course, there’s a flaw in Blaine’s logic.
“Unless you’re planning to inherit a trove of lost McQueen designs after graduation, you could put half of New Directions together and all of us combined wouldn’t be able to afford the rent on a one-bedroom loft in Williamsburg,” Kurt points out.
He covers the mouthpiece of his cell phone with one hand. “You’ve really done your research, haven’t you?”
“Blaine, I have intended to move to New York since I was seven years old.” He waits, then, because Blaine starts talking to his father’s voicemail again. For all that it’s not in a Kurt Hummel-approved borough, the feeling of walking hand in hand with Blaine in New York, it’s just — indescribable, and Kurt is perfectly happy to bask in it while Blaine leaves his message.
“See you tonight,” Blaine finishes, and then he slips his phone back into his pocket and looks over at Kurt, his face soft. “I love that about you.”
“… You love telling your dad that we’ll meet him for dinner tonight?” Kurt asks, doubtful.
“How long you’ve known exactly what you want, and how much of yourself you throw into getting it,” he says, quiet and faintly awed; "I love that," and Kurt doesn’t break eye contact as he squeezes Blaine’s hand, hard.
They spend the morning ducking in and out of boutiques in Williamsburg, Kurt picking up a few gifts for people at home but primarily making unimpressed faces at the clothes on the racks and the prices that the proprietors are trying to charge for them. Blaine points out all of the organic coffee shops and the second, third, and fourth story apartments with mini gardens blooming down the fire escapes, and Kurt has to admit that, practicalities aside, he could almost imagine living here.
Except for one very important factor.
“If we move here and you become the king of the hipsters, I’m breaking up with you.”
“What is it about me exactly that screams ‘hipster-in-the-making’?” Blaine asks, bemused. Considering that he’s sitting across from Kurt in perfectly pressed shorts, a fitted polo, and boat shoes, hair gelled into place and foot hooked neatly over his knee, it’s a reasonable question.
“I know you, Blaine,” he says, pointing at him with what remains of his sandwich crust. “First you’ll be bringing the new neighbors a fruitcake,” (fruitcake? Blaine mouths incredulously at him; Kurt ignores him), “to welcome them to the apartment complex and you’ll come home talking enthusiastically about a ‘really cool’ theme party that they’re throwing where all that anyone is allowed to drink is Miller High Life, and then, before you know it, you'll be sucked into their world of ironic trucker hats and non-prescription glasses and bands that no one has heard of.”
He’s laughing by the time that Kurt finishes, his expression soft and fond. “They’re people with common interests, Kurt, not a cult.”
He lifts his eyebrows dubiously and then glances over at the four 20-somethings sitting around a table by the window. They’re wearing loose tank-tops and old man sweaters and skinny jeans or cut-off shorts; three out of the four have glasses, and Kurt would bet half his college savings account that the four bicycles-with-baskets in various pastel shades chained up outside belong to them. “I can’t decide if they’re all really hipster or really gay,” Kurt says frankly, and Blaine studies the group.
“Does it have to be an either/or situation?” he asks, and Kurt snorts and pulls his phone out of his bag after he hears it buzz with an incoming text. Blaine smiles and gets up. “Tell Rachel I say hi, and that going to you to find out what her surprise is isn’t going to work.”
“I can’t believe that we got Norbert Leo Butz’s autograph and not only are you not keeping yours, you’re giving it to Rachel Berry,” Kurt says, as he taps out a response to Rachel’s obnoxious text. “She’s going to be insufferable.”
“Still bitter that she saw Patti sophomore year and you didn’t, huh?” Blaine asks on his way to the back of the cafe, presumably headed for the bathroom, and Kurt balls up his napkin and flicks it at him. It falls far, far short of its intended target, and he sighs and finishes the text informing Rachel that he isn’t about to rat his boyfriend out. After hitting send, he raises his head to look at where the napkin fell — and it isn’t there anymore.
Because it’s in someone’s hand right in front of his face.
It’s one of the guys from the possibly-hipster, possibly-gay, possibly-both table. He’s wearing a straw boater hat and glasses with enormously round lenses; he’s cute, in a dirty sort of a way. “I think you dropped something,” he says.
Kurt blinks. “Thank you,” he says slowly, taking the napkin back and curling it into his fingers.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before,” he says, smiling.
Oh. Oh God.
Kurt isn’t quite sure whether to feel a sudden rush of embarrassment or like he is being complimented, or if he should go with sheer what-do-I-do-with-this awkwardness.
He's fully aware that he is not an unattractive human being. Blaine will happily go on at length about all of his favorite parts of Kurt and why they are his favorites, and anyway, Kurt has plenty of self-esteem and an objective eye. He knows he looks good. But that doesn’t mean that he’s fully prepared for being hit on by a stranger. It’s not something that he exactly has a lot of experience with, growing up in Lima, where the girls are perfectly aware from the first second that they see him that he doesn’t “bat for their side,” and where the gays are (1) Blaine or (2) Rachel’s dads or (3) deeply closeted.
He’s not interested, not even the tiniest bit, but — there’s something sort of incredible about a complete stranger finding him attractive enough to walk up and just start flirting; about the fact that that’s something that can happen here.
He tries not to preen.
“That would be because I haven’t been here before,” Kurt says, after a half a second of his mouth opening and closing uselessly. How old does Definitely-Hipster, Definitely-Gay, Definitely-in-His-Twenties think that Kurt is?
He laughs like that was some terribly witty remark (it wasn’t intended as one). “I thought so. I definitely would have remembered you.”
Kurt doesn’t want to smile at that horrendous line, he really doesn’t, but it’s a reflex. Mostly a trying-not-to-laugh-at-him reflex. “That’s — flattering,” he says, “but I’m here w—”
“Hi!” says Blaine’s voice from directly behind him. “What’s up?” That is his dangerously friendly tone; the one that he uses when he is about to condescendingly (verbally) flatten a hockey player carrying a slushie cup while smiling the whole time.
The stranger’s eyes flick to Blaine over Kurt’s shoulder, then back down to Kurt himself; he looks awkward enough that Kurt realizes that he fully comprehends what’s going on here, but just to make it clear—
“As I was about to mention,” he says lightly, lacing his fingers together over his knee, “I’m visiting from out of state and was waiting for my boyfriend.” Who, judging by the tone of his voice on that greeting, looks psychotic right about now.
“Right.” The hipster shuffles his feet and takes a step back. “Uh, enjoy your stay?” And then whatever he sees in Blaine’s face makes him flee back toward his table. Two steps away, he wheels back and says, “You can — just throw that away,” and then this time, he does flee.
Kurt smooths out the napkin. He tips his head to the side. “That’s actually a surprisingly accurate drawing of me, considering that it was done in 30 seconds on a crumpled napkin.” There’s a phone number under it, and a name that he can’t quite read but he thinks says “Stefano.”
“I’m sure you would have been very happy together in a relationship that was based on his artistic skills,” Blaine says, coming around the table to take his seat again. He is obviously trying for easy banter, but it sounds strained and too bitter to pass as good-natured, and his fake smile has faded into a frown.
Kurt can’t decide if this reaction is infuriating or flattering/endearing.
“For the record,” says Kurt accusingly, letting his mouth firm up, “I would just like to point out that I’ve never tried to intimidate anyone who expressed interest in you.”
“Really?” Blaine asks, dubiously, in that way that says: uh, I was there; no.
“…Physically intimidate,” Kurt allows. Intellectually is another matter. He shakes his head sharply; Blaine is getting him off topic. Sharp: “You don’t have to be a caveman, Blaine; it’s not like this is something that happens every day, or like I was about to encourage him.”
Blaine opens his mouth — and then he pauses, and something in his expression shifts, softening. “The only reason it doesn’t happen every day is that Lima is too small for how great you are.”
The problem with fighting with Blaine is that they have moments like these, where one or both of them stops and says something too sweet to be ignored. Which, Kurt realizes, isn't much of a problem. When he's less annoyed, he certainly prefers it to the occasions when they really get going at each other.
When he is annoyed, it's frustrating to be pulled up short like that, though.
“It’s too small for you, too,” Kurt points out. After a moment, he holds his hand out across the table. Blaine immediately reaches out and the weight of his palm in Kurt’s is familiar and warm and reassuring. “Being in New York isn’t going to change us, Blaine.” Blaine still looks a little uncertain, and Kurt thinks about what he just said before amending, “Well, it probably will change us, but it won’t change us,” and from the way that Blaine grips his hand, he know that he understood.
Lima can’t touch what they have, and neither can Brooklyn.
Blaine gets it, Kurt can see it in his face, even if he does eye the four hipsters as they make an awkward exit and then say, “You were right; they’re a cult.”
“You weren’t joking when you said that you were going to be wildly jealous when we got to New York.”
“I know,” Blaine says immediately, looking shamefaced. “I know, seriously caveman, I’m sorry, Kurt, I really am; it’s just—”
“Hard to watch?” Kurt suggests dryly, thinking of all of the times that he has watched girls flirt with Blaine over the last two years — and the handful of occasions when it has been boys — and Blaine looks like he is in actual physical pain, that’s how remorseful he is.
They’re both done with their food; Kurt urges him outside before he can start apologizing again, and then he tucks himself close against Blaine’s side and lets him drag him all over Williamsburg, explaining his entire fantasy of where they’ll be and what they’ll be doing in four years. Kurt gets into it, too, helping pick out “their” apartment (a second story set of windows over a tiny breakfast nook, with fluttering muslin curtains that would come down the second that Kurt moved in) and “their” corner store and “their” favorite restaurant for quiet dates.
Halfway through, he promises, “I wouldn't give you up; not for all the dirty hipsters in Brooklyn,” in Blaine’s ear, and Blaine laughs and kisses him right there on the street corner as pedestrians flow around them.
Later in the afternoon, Kurt is forced to admit that Greenwich Village had possibly not been the best of field trips for a day when Blaine was feeling insecure about Kurt being eyed by older men. Apparently, the very same looks, fashion sense, and voice that got him dumpstered at McKinley are surprisingly alluring to gay urbanites. They’ve both received their fair share of glances, but Kurt can tell that Blaine is only cataloguing the ones directed at him.
By the time that Blaine comes back from getting a picture of the sign at Stonewall in time to snap at a bearded man in a suit, informing him that Kurt is 16 (which is a bald-faced lie, as he is almost 18, thank you very much), Kurt has had it.
He manhandles Blaine across the street against his protests, through the gate into the tiny sliver of a park that separates Grove Street and Stonewall Place, and stops him in front of a bench. “Blaine,” he says, glaring at him incredulously, “that guy was asking me what time it was.”
Blaine’s face goes though a fascinating series of changes, from sullen to aghast to very deeply embarrassed and ashamed within the blink of an eye. “Oh my God,” he says, and he drops down on the bench, his face in his hands.
Kurt gives it serious thought, debating whether he’s too irritated to sit down with him, but then he exhales and perches beside Blaine. “This isn’t you,” he says, careful, and it’s true. The Blaine that he knows is polite and supportive and friendly, even in the face of adversity and rudeness and snark, none of which he has even faced this afternoon (besides from Kurt).
“I’m never listening to Santana again,” Blaine says into his hands.
“—What,” says Kurt. “What?”
“She’s been texting me since we got here, asking if — anybody’s hitting on you yet,” says Blaine, finally lifting his head, and the pause is an excellent indicator that he just censored whatever Santana’s actual commentary had been. “And telling me all about how I’d better watch my back— your back— whatever, and I know it was ridiculous, but she … really got to me.”
“Oh honey no,” Kurt says, caught somewhere between condescension and pity and irritation and absolute horror. “No, no, no. We don’t take advice from Santana. She slept with one coed at orientation and suddenly she’s an expert on all matters of the heart.”
“That’s not the piece of anatomy that she’s—”
“Stop.” He hurriedly lifts a hand. “Please stop.” Blaine shuts up, and for a moment, Kurt just watches his profile, wondering how someone so sweet and smart and kind can be so dense. “I know that you have an inexplicable bond with Santana,” he says, “but you have to know that she’s sex-obsessed and one of the most cynical human beings in the greater midwest.” Beat. “If she is, in fact, a human bei—”
“Kurt,” Blaine says, without looking at him, and Kurt doesn’t finish the thought.
“My point is: she’s a terrible person to be taking advice from. Quite possibly the worst option in existence.” From Blaine’s little snort, Kurt is fairly certain that he’s agreeing with that statement. He allows more irritation to creep into his voice when he says, “And she is not who you should be talking to if you seriously think that I’m going to cheat on you. Seriously, Blaine?”
His head snaps up. “I don’t think you’re going to cheat on me,” Blaine is saying before Kurt has even entirely finished, wide eyed, and he scrabbles to grab Kurt’s hand. “I would never think that.”
“It was just hard to watch,” Kurt supplies again, wry, and then he relents enough to add: “Especially with Santana texting you pornographic sweet nothings.”
“Something like that,” Blaine says, as ashamed as Kurt has ever seen him. “I’m so sorry, Kurt; I know I’ve been—”
“—Special today,” says Kurt, patting him on the arm. “Let’s go with special.” Even that doesn’t draw a smile out of Blaine. “Blaine, we’re fine. Santana could find drama in a Walmart bargain bin of white athletic socks.” He leans in along the bench, shifting until their thighs are pressed together and Blaine finally glances over, looking miserable and embarrassed and all of these emotions that were definitely not supposed to be felt on their New York Adventure.
Intent, Kurt informs him: “We’re going to move here and get our degrees and our dream jobs, together, because we’re just that talented and I’m never letting go of you.” In the split second before he rests his forehead against Blaine’s, he is aware that Blaine is slowly, helplessly starting to smile.
"Never saying goodbye to you," Blaine murmurs, as much a promise and an answer as it is a reminder, and Kurt rests his hand on the back of Blaine's neck and tries to convince himself that it is physically impossible for his heart to crack his chest with love.
They sit there like that for a few moments, Blaine squeezing his hand and Kurt’s other fingers tracing slow, careful patterns in the stiff hair at the nape of Blaine's neck. Kurt listens to him breathe; he listens to other people’s voices and the sounds of traffic, and a lone bird skipping through the trees above them. He eventually says, “And in the short term, you have the option of either turning your phone off for the rest of the day or handing it to me the next time that Santana starts trying to bring back Auntie Tana.”
Blaine laughs, his breath warm on Kurt’s face. “That was the worst advice column that has ever existed.”
“My point exactly,” Kurt says, and he brushes a few loose curls away from Blaine’s forehead and leans back enough that he can smile at him, a touch uncertainly, wanting to make sure.
Smiling genuinely back, Blaine lifts his hand and presses a deeply apologetic kiss to his knuckles. “What do you want to do with the rest of the day?”
Kurt knows what he wants: he wants to curl around Blaine in his gigantic luxurious bed and discuss the pros and cons of the three Broadway shows that they’re debating between for tomorrow’s rush tickets. He wants to do some very serious packing for that early morning venture, and then he wants to order room service and fake sick so that they don’t have to go out to dinner with Blaine’s dad. He wants to lie there and calmly discuss how ridiculous today was and how to avoid anything like it happening again, and then maybe make out a little bit, if he’s feeling sufficiently appeased.
Then Blaine’s cell phone buzzes.
“—Give me the phone,” Kurt says, deadly serious, holding out his hand. “Give it.”
After a long pause, Blaine hands it over. Kurt reads the text, glares at it so hard that he can feel his ears go red, and then calls up Santana’s number from Blaine’s contacts.
Blaine wraps an arm around his waist from behind and croons, “Take a bite of my heart tonight” in his other ear, in an apparent commentary on how homicidal Kurt is coming across right now, and Kurt, unfortunately for his intimidation factor, is laughing by the time Santana picks up the phone.
Fandom: Glee
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Kurt Hummel/Blaine Anderson; mentions of Santana Lopez and Rachel Berry
Summary: Kurt and Blaine technically tagged along on Blaine's dad's New York business trip so that they could tour college campuses, but the trip also has its fringe benefits. Like: an entire day spent roaming the city with Blaine. Even if Blaine isn't responding very gracefully to the unexpected attention that Kurt finds himself receiving.
Count: 4778 words
Notes: For the anon on Tumblr who requested fic where Kurt is flirted with and Blaine gets jealous. Also on Tumblr, someone mentioned the horrific idea of an "Auntie Tana" "anonymous" advice column and I ran with it; I can't remember who it was, but they deserve the credit for that one! This follows Possession Is Nine-Tenths of the Law, though it's designed to function as a stand-alone.
* * *
“Williamsburg?” Kurt says, his eyebrows raised precariously. “Williamsburg.” And then, all at once, his eyebrows lower. “We have a day in New York City entirely to ourselves, and you want to go to Williamsburg?”
Blaine laughs in that surprised, incredulous way that means he’s not sure if he should be offended. “What’s wrong with Williamsburg?”
After a year and five months of dating and nearly two years of friendship, Kurt has perfected a squinty judging look that he personally thinks of as: really, Blaine? really? He executes it now.
To Blaine’s credit, he has become increasingly immune to the look. “Come on,” he wheedles. He rolls over in the bed, the crisp hotel room linens crinkling under him, and he rests his chin on Kurt’s thigh. “We can hold hands on the subway…”
The absurd thing is that that is actually a tempting offer.
Kurt sighs down at him. “It’s called the Metro, Blaine,” but he reaches across the bed for his shirt, and Blaine kisses his hip and then happily agrees to visit Greenwich Village afterward.
Kurt still doesn’t know how Blaine talked his dad into this. Mr. Anderson is both closer to Blaine and much more at ease around Kurt than he used to be, but Kurt is fairly certain that Blaine’s dad is never going to be fully comfortable with the two of them. Kurt was the first tangible proof that Blaine is very, very gay, and Kurt himself is very, very gay. Mr. Anderson may have come a long way in the last year, but Kurt doesn’t think he’s ever going to get over that.
So the fact that Blaine managed to convince him to not only take Blaine to New York, but Kurt, too, and to take the extra step of talking to Kurt’s dad about it — it’s nothing short of a miracle. They’re supposedly here to look at colleges (Blaine’s top choice is Fordham; Kurt’s is NYU, for all that he wistfully considered applying to Juilliard with Rachel), but they spent Saturday, Sunday, and Monday in campus tour mode and now they’re free to do whatever they’d like until Thursday.
This was the part of the plan that gave Kurt’s dad the most pause, and in the end, it took the combined efforts of Kurt and Carole to break him down. Kurt loves Carole. Kurt always loves Carole, but after four days spent running around New York City with his boyfriend (and sometimes his boyfriend’s father, but that actually hasn’t been as bad as expected), Kurt really, really loves Carole. He has never been so happy to have a stepmother or to have been an honor roll, truthful-with-parents, disciplinary-action-free student. He and Blaine have proved themselves trustworthy, both together and separately, and it has led them to the nirvana of early morning hotel room sex (after Blaine’s dad left for a day of meetings in the Financial District and Blaine came barreling into Kurt’s room) and now an aboveground train track, rocking their way into Brooklyn.
Kurt has been trying not to look like a slack-jawed corn-fed yokel, but it was impossible not to stare at the M train’s view of Manhattan as they crossed the East River. He doesn’t understand how everyone else on the car (a motley assortment of people with several seats still free, give that it’s 10:30 on a Tuesday morning) could be so blase, reading newspapers and staring dully at smartphones. This is it, Kurt had thought, watching the sunlight glint off the maze of skyscrapers; this is where he belongs.
Now they’ve crossed into Brooklyn and the view is less transcendent — a jungle of concrete buildings and graffiti — but still unmistakably Big City, and Kurt is having a hard time not whipping his head from side to side to try to take in everything all at once.
Blaine is on the phone. “—tting off at Lorimer Street and Broadway, and we’re going to be in the area for a few hours,” Blaine says, because this was part of the deal if they were going to be allowed to run free: leaving Mr. Anderson messages about where they are and what they’re doing. “We’ll be back by dinner—” Kurt taps Blaine’s knee as they roll into the next station and he leans down to get a look at the station name on the board. He points at the doors when Blaine glances at him inquisitively, and grabs his bag. Blaine nods and gets up after him, finishing, “I’ll call when we’re leaving Brooklyn.” He ends the call and starts to turn toward Kurt.
The train grinds to a sudden, shuddering halt and Blaine clearly has not perfected the art of subway surfing just yet, because he’s flung into Kurt, who falls backward and frantically grabs the overhead bar with one hand and Blaine’s waist with his other arm.
“—My hero,” Blaine says, and they beam at each other, Blaine leaning against Kurt’s chest. In that moment, Kurt knows that he could kiss him and hardly anyone in the car would even glance up from their phones. From the look on Blaine’s face, a similar thought is crossing his mind; he starts to lean up and — the doors slide open, and Kurt jerks away so fast that Blaine nearly goes face-down on the bench seat.
“What are you doing?” Kurt asks, grabbing his arm and pulling him along. “We’re going to miss our stop.”
“I can’t believe I ever thought that I was the less romantic one in this relationship,” grumbles Blaine, but he’s laughing and he lets Kurt tug him off the train, across the platform, and down the stairs, so he can’t be too irritated.
On the street, Kurt pauses for a moment to get his bearings, sliding his favorite pair of vintage sunglasses on his nose. It’s August in New York and it is hot; the second that they stepped out of the air-conditioned train car, it was like being slapped in the face by a hot soggy dishtowel. Kurt is well-pleased with his selection of shorts-with-hanging-suspenders, boots, and a lightweight striped henley. It hadn’t been his first choice of outfit, but after weighing the forecast, he’d decided that — unfortunately for his stellar collection of coats, vests, and summer scarves — less would be more, and the heat is proving him correct. Blaine, meanwhile, looks like he stepped out of a J. Crew catalogue. Kurt gave up on him last year after a fruitless summer spent trying to convince him not to wear boat shoes without socks. He ultimately elected to ignore Blaine’s footwear choices and just revel in the fact that he has an incredibly attractive boyfriend whose picture belongs in the dictionary beside the word “preppy.”
Blaine ducks around behind him to his left side, so he won’t be hit by the bag on Kurt’s right hip, and he extends his hand. Kurt looks from his hand to his smiling face, and he smiles back and fits their hands together. He can’t even find it in himself to be all that annoyed that they’re standing across the street from a whole lot of construction and a sketchy-looking 24-hour deli grocery, under the elevated track as a train roars past overhead. “Well?” Kurt asks, lightly teasing and only a little wry. “Where to?”
“…You were right,” Blaine says; “that was the wrong line,” and Kurt sighs and pulls him along the sidewalk, toward where he knows there’s a downtown L stop about a mile up the street. His habit of making a vigorous study of the New York City public transportation system (and of pulling up route information on his phone while Blaine was wrongly insisting back in the hotel room that they needed to take the M to get to their destination) has finally paid off.
“Call your dad back,” he instructs. “Tell him that you were wrong and we’re going to be exiting the subway at Bedford Avenue and will be in that area, unless you’ve changed your mind about the entire Williamsburg venture.” He makes hopeful eyebrows.
“I just want to see some of the neighborhoods where we could potentially live,” Blaine cheerfully defends, but he’s pulling out his phone and following along willingly. To Kurt’s eye, he looks a little relieved that someone else has taken over the directions.
That gives Kurt pause. “I thought we agreed that we’re both living in the dorms,” he says, careful. “The ‘full college experience’ and all of that.”
“We won’t always be living in dorms,” he says absently while dialing his dad’s number, like it’s obvious and that simple statement didn’t just make heat crawl up into Kurt’s face. Kurt thinks that they’re still going to be together in four years, as much as he knows that some people find it naïve, and makes his heart beat harder whenever he receives reminders that Blaine feels the same way.
Of course, there’s a flaw in Blaine’s logic.
“Unless you’re planning to inherit a trove of lost McQueen designs after graduation, you could put half of New Directions together and all of us combined wouldn’t be able to afford the rent on a one-bedroom loft in Williamsburg,” Kurt points out.
He covers the mouthpiece of his cell phone with one hand. “You’ve really done your research, haven’t you?”
“Blaine, I have intended to move to New York since I was seven years old.” He waits, then, because Blaine starts talking to his father’s voicemail again. For all that it’s not in a Kurt Hummel-approved borough, the feeling of walking hand in hand with Blaine in New York, it’s just — indescribable, and Kurt is perfectly happy to bask in it while Blaine leaves his message.
“See you tonight,” Blaine finishes, and then he slips his phone back into his pocket and looks over at Kurt, his face soft. “I love that about you.”
“… You love telling your dad that we’ll meet him for dinner tonight?” Kurt asks, doubtful.
“How long you’ve known exactly what you want, and how much of yourself you throw into getting it,” he says, quiet and faintly awed; "I love that," and Kurt doesn’t break eye contact as he squeezes Blaine’s hand, hard.
They spend the morning ducking in and out of boutiques in Williamsburg, Kurt picking up a few gifts for people at home but primarily making unimpressed faces at the clothes on the racks and the prices that the proprietors are trying to charge for them. Blaine points out all of the organic coffee shops and the second, third, and fourth story apartments with mini gardens blooming down the fire escapes, and Kurt has to admit that, practicalities aside, he could almost imagine living here.
Except for one very important factor.
“If we move here and you become the king of the hipsters, I’m breaking up with you.”
“What is it about me exactly that screams ‘hipster-in-the-making’?” Blaine asks, bemused. Considering that he’s sitting across from Kurt in perfectly pressed shorts, a fitted polo, and boat shoes, hair gelled into place and foot hooked neatly over his knee, it’s a reasonable question.
“I know you, Blaine,” he says, pointing at him with what remains of his sandwich crust. “First you’ll be bringing the new neighbors a fruitcake,” (fruitcake? Blaine mouths incredulously at him; Kurt ignores him), “to welcome them to the apartment complex and you’ll come home talking enthusiastically about a ‘really cool’ theme party that they’re throwing where all that anyone is allowed to drink is Miller High Life, and then, before you know it, you'll be sucked into their world of ironic trucker hats and non-prescription glasses and bands that no one has heard of.”
He’s laughing by the time that Kurt finishes, his expression soft and fond. “They’re people with common interests, Kurt, not a cult.”
He lifts his eyebrows dubiously and then glances over at the four 20-somethings sitting around a table by the window. They’re wearing loose tank-tops and old man sweaters and skinny jeans or cut-off shorts; three out of the four have glasses, and Kurt would bet half his college savings account that the four bicycles-with-baskets in various pastel shades chained up outside belong to them. “I can’t decide if they’re all really hipster or really gay,” Kurt says frankly, and Blaine studies the group.
“Does it have to be an either/or situation?” he asks, and Kurt snorts and pulls his phone out of his bag after he hears it buzz with an incoming text. Blaine smiles and gets up. “Tell Rachel I say hi, and that going to you to find out what her surprise is isn’t going to work.”
“I can’t believe that we got Norbert Leo Butz’s autograph and not only are you not keeping yours, you’re giving it to Rachel Berry,” Kurt says, as he taps out a response to Rachel’s obnoxious text. “She’s going to be insufferable.”
“Still bitter that she saw Patti sophomore year and you didn’t, huh?” Blaine asks on his way to the back of the cafe, presumably headed for the bathroom, and Kurt balls up his napkin and flicks it at him. It falls far, far short of its intended target, and he sighs and finishes the text informing Rachel that he isn’t about to rat his boyfriend out. After hitting send, he raises his head to look at where the napkin fell — and it isn’t there anymore.
Because it’s in someone’s hand right in front of his face.
It’s one of the guys from the possibly-hipster, possibly-gay, possibly-both table. He’s wearing a straw boater hat and glasses with enormously round lenses; he’s cute, in a dirty sort of a way. “I think you dropped something,” he says.
Kurt blinks. “Thank you,” he says slowly, taking the napkin back and curling it into his fingers.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before,” he says, smiling.
Oh. Oh God.
Kurt isn’t quite sure whether to feel a sudden rush of embarrassment or like he is being complimented, or if he should go with sheer what-do-I-do-with-this awkwardness.
He's fully aware that he is not an unattractive human being. Blaine will happily go on at length about all of his favorite parts of Kurt and why they are his favorites, and anyway, Kurt has plenty of self-esteem and an objective eye. He knows he looks good. But that doesn’t mean that he’s fully prepared for being hit on by a stranger. It’s not something that he exactly has a lot of experience with, growing up in Lima, where the girls are perfectly aware from the first second that they see him that he doesn’t “bat for their side,” and where the gays are (1) Blaine or (2) Rachel’s dads or (3) deeply closeted.
He’s not interested, not even the tiniest bit, but — there’s something sort of incredible about a complete stranger finding him attractive enough to walk up and just start flirting; about the fact that that’s something that can happen here.
He tries not to preen.
“That would be because I haven’t been here before,” Kurt says, after a half a second of his mouth opening and closing uselessly. How old does Definitely-Hipster, Definitely-Gay, Definitely-in-His-Twenties think that Kurt is?
He laughs like that was some terribly witty remark (it wasn’t intended as one). “I thought so. I definitely would have remembered you.”
Kurt doesn’t want to smile at that horrendous line, he really doesn’t, but it’s a reflex. Mostly a trying-not-to-laugh-at-him reflex. “That’s — flattering,” he says, “but I’m here w—”
“Hi!” says Blaine’s voice from directly behind him. “What’s up?” That is his dangerously friendly tone; the one that he uses when he is about to condescendingly (verbally) flatten a hockey player carrying a slushie cup while smiling the whole time.
The stranger’s eyes flick to Blaine over Kurt’s shoulder, then back down to Kurt himself; he looks awkward enough that Kurt realizes that he fully comprehends what’s going on here, but just to make it clear—
“As I was about to mention,” he says lightly, lacing his fingers together over his knee, “I’m visiting from out of state and was waiting for my boyfriend.” Who, judging by the tone of his voice on that greeting, looks psychotic right about now.
“Right.” The hipster shuffles his feet and takes a step back. “Uh, enjoy your stay?” And then whatever he sees in Blaine’s face makes him flee back toward his table. Two steps away, he wheels back and says, “You can — just throw that away,” and then this time, he does flee.
Kurt smooths out the napkin. He tips his head to the side. “That’s actually a surprisingly accurate drawing of me, considering that it was done in 30 seconds on a crumpled napkin.” There’s a phone number under it, and a name that he can’t quite read but he thinks says “Stefano.”
“I’m sure you would have been very happy together in a relationship that was based on his artistic skills,” Blaine says, coming around the table to take his seat again. He is obviously trying for easy banter, but it sounds strained and too bitter to pass as good-natured, and his fake smile has faded into a frown.
Kurt can’t decide if this reaction is infuriating or flattering/endearing.
“For the record,” says Kurt accusingly, letting his mouth firm up, “I would just like to point out that I’ve never tried to intimidate anyone who expressed interest in you.”
“Really?” Blaine asks, dubiously, in that way that says: uh, I was there; no.
“…Physically intimidate,” Kurt allows. Intellectually is another matter. He shakes his head sharply; Blaine is getting him off topic. Sharp: “You don’t have to be a caveman, Blaine; it’s not like this is something that happens every day, or like I was about to encourage him.”
Blaine opens his mouth — and then he pauses, and something in his expression shifts, softening. “The only reason it doesn’t happen every day is that Lima is too small for how great you are.”
The problem with fighting with Blaine is that they have moments like these, where one or both of them stops and says something too sweet to be ignored. Which, Kurt realizes, isn't much of a problem. When he's less annoyed, he certainly prefers it to the occasions when they really get going at each other.
When he is annoyed, it's frustrating to be pulled up short like that, though.
“It’s too small for you, too,” Kurt points out. After a moment, he holds his hand out across the table. Blaine immediately reaches out and the weight of his palm in Kurt’s is familiar and warm and reassuring. “Being in New York isn’t going to change us, Blaine.” Blaine still looks a little uncertain, and Kurt thinks about what he just said before amending, “Well, it probably will change us, but it won’t change us,” and from the way that Blaine grips his hand, he know that he understood.
Lima can’t touch what they have, and neither can Brooklyn.
Blaine gets it, Kurt can see it in his face, even if he does eye the four hipsters as they make an awkward exit and then say, “You were right; they’re a cult.”
“You weren’t joking when you said that you were going to be wildly jealous when we got to New York.”
“I know,” Blaine says immediately, looking shamefaced. “I know, seriously caveman, I’m sorry, Kurt, I really am; it’s just—”
“Hard to watch?” Kurt suggests dryly, thinking of all of the times that he has watched girls flirt with Blaine over the last two years — and the handful of occasions when it has been boys — and Blaine looks like he is in actual physical pain, that’s how remorseful he is.
They’re both done with their food; Kurt urges him outside before he can start apologizing again, and then he tucks himself close against Blaine’s side and lets him drag him all over Williamsburg, explaining his entire fantasy of where they’ll be and what they’ll be doing in four years. Kurt gets into it, too, helping pick out “their” apartment (a second story set of windows over a tiny breakfast nook, with fluttering muslin curtains that would come down the second that Kurt moved in) and “their” corner store and “their” favorite restaurant for quiet dates.
Halfway through, he promises, “I wouldn't give you up; not for all the dirty hipsters in Brooklyn,” in Blaine’s ear, and Blaine laughs and kisses him right there on the street corner as pedestrians flow around them.
Later in the afternoon, Kurt is forced to admit that Greenwich Village had possibly not been the best of field trips for a day when Blaine was feeling insecure about Kurt being eyed by older men. Apparently, the very same looks, fashion sense, and voice that got him dumpstered at McKinley are surprisingly alluring to gay urbanites. They’ve both received their fair share of glances, but Kurt can tell that Blaine is only cataloguing the ones directed at him.
By the time that Blaine comes back from getting a picture of the sign at Stonewall in time to snap at a bearded man in a suit, informing him that Kurt is 16 (which is a bald-faced lie, as he is almost 18, thank you very much), Kurt has had it.
He manhandles Blaine across the street against his protests, through the gate into the tiny sliver of a park that separates Grove Street and Stonewall Place, and stops him in front of a bench. “Blaine,” he says, glaring at him incredulously, “that guy was asking me what time it was.”
Blaine’s face goes though a fascinating series of changes, from sullen to aghast to very deeply embarrassed and ashamed within the blink of an eye. “Oh my God,” he says, and he drops down on the bench, his face in his hands.
Kurt gives it serious thought, debating whether he’s too irritated to sit down with him, but then he exhales and perches beside Blaine. “This isn’t you,” he says, careful, and it’s true. The Blaine that he knows is polite and supportive and friendly, even in the face of adversity and rudeness and snark, none of which he has even faced this afternoon (besides from Kurt).
“I’m never listening to Santana again,” Blaine says into his hands.
“—What,” says Kurt. “What?”
“She’s been texting me since we got here, asking if — anybody’s hitting on you yet,” says Blaine, finally lifting his head, and the pause is an excellent indicator that he just censored whatever Santana’s actual commentary had been. “And telling me all about how I’d better watch my back— your back— whatever, and I know it was ridiculous, but she … really got to me.”
“Oh honey no,” Kurt says, caught somewhere between condescension and pity and irritation and absolute horror. “No, no, no. We don’t take advice from Santana. She slept with one coed at orientation and suddenly she’s an expert on all matters of the heart.”
“That’s not the piece of anatomy that she’s—”
“Stop.” He hurriedly lifts a hand. “Please stop.” Blaine shuts up, and for a moment, Kurt just watches his profile, wondering how someone so sweet and smart and kind can be so dense. “I know that you have an inexplicable bond with Santana,” he says, “but you have to know that she’s sex-obsessed and one of the most cynical human beings in the greater midwest.” Beat. “If she is, in fact, a human bei—”
“Kurt,” Blaine says, without looking at him, and Kurt doesn’t finish the thought.
“My point is: she’s a terrible person to be taking advice from. Quite possibly the worst option in existence.” From Blaine’s little snort, Kurt is fairly certain that he’s agreeing with that statement. He allows more irritation to creep into his voice when he says, “And she is not who you should be talking to if you seriously think that I’m going to cheat on you. Seriously, Blaine?”
His head snaps up. “I don’t think you’re going to cheat on me,” Blaine is saying before Kurt has even entirely finished, wide eyed, and he scrabbles to grab Kurt’s hand. “I would never think that.”
“It was just hard to watch,” Kurt supplies again, wry, and then he relents enough to add: “Especially with Santana texting you pornographic sweet nothings.”
“Something like that,” Blaine says, as ashamed as Kurt has ever seen him. “I’m so sorry, Kurt; I know I’ve been—”
“—Special today,” says Kurt, patting him on the arm. “Let’s go with special.” Even that doesn’t draw a smile out of Blaine. “Blaine, we’re fine. Santana could find drama in a Walmart bargain bin of white athletic socks.” He leans in along the bench, shifting until their thighs are pressed together and Blaine finally glances over, looking miserable and embarrassed and all of these emotions that were definitely not supposed to be felt on their New York Adventure.
Intent, Kurt informs him: “We’re going to move here and get our degrees and our dream jobs, together, because we’re just that talented and I’m never letting go of you.” In the split second before he rests his forehead against Blaine’s, he is aware that Blaine is slowly, helplessly starting to smile.
"Never saying goodbye to you," Blaine murmurs, as much a promise and an answer as it is a reminder, and Kurt rests his hand on the back of Blaine's neck and tries to convince himself that it is physically impossible for his heart to crack his chest with love.
They sit there like that for a few moments, Blaine squeezing his hand and Kurt’s other fingers tracing slow, careful patterns in the stiff hair at the nape of Blaine's neck. Kurt listens to him breathe; he listens to other people’s voices and the sounds of traffic, and a lone bird skipping through the trees above them. He eventually says, “And in the short term, you have the option of either turning your phone off for the rest of the day or handing it to me the next time that Santana starts trying to bring back Auntie Tana.”
Blaine laughs, his breath warm on Kurt’s face. “That was the worst advice column that has ever existed.”
“My point exactly,” Kurt says, and he brushes a few loose curls away from Blaine’s forehead and leans back enough that he can smile at him, a touch uncertainly, wanting to make sure.
Smiling genuinely back, Blaine lifts his hand and presses a deeply apologetic kiss to his knuckles. “What do you want to do with the rest of the day?”
Kurt knows what he wants: he wants to curl around Blaine in his gigantic luxurious bed and discuss the pros and cons of the three Broadway shows that they’re debating between for tomorrow’s rush tickets. He wants to do some very serious packing for that early morning venture, and then he wants to order room service and fake sick so that they don’t have to go out to dinner with Blaine’s dad. He wants to lie there and calmly discuss how ridiculous today was and how to avoid anything like it happening again, and then maybe make out a little bit, if he’s feeling sufficiently appeased.
Then Blaine’s cell phone buzzes.
“—Give me the phone,” Kurt says, deadly serious, holding out his hand. “Give it.”
After a long pause, Blaine hands it over. Kurt reads the text, glares at it so hard that he can feel his ears go red, and then calls up Santana’s number from Blaine’s contacts.
Blaine wraps an arm around his waist from behind and croons, “Take a bite of my heart tonight” in his other ear, in an apparent commentary on how homicidal Kurt is coming across right now, and Kurt, unfortunately for his intimidation factor, is laughing by the time Santana picks up the phone.
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