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Fic: Sharing Is Caring
Title: Sharing Is Caring
Fandom: Glee
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Kurt Hummel/Blaine Anderson, Emma Pillsbury
Count: 3553 words
Summary: Blaine and Kurt finish a conversation in the guidance office and go forward from there. Also, there are pamphlets.
Notes: I just really needed cuddles after that episode, man.
* * *
“I’m sorry,” Kurt says softly, warm breath muffled by Blaine’s neck but clearly audible. Blaine digs his fingers into Kurt’s back, kind of a one-handed squeeze to signal that he heard.
For what feels like the first time in weeks, Blaine exhales all the way out, til he’s slumped with no air left in his lungs and all his muscles slowly beginning to loosen. He hadn’t realized til this moment how tense he has felt; how tightly-wound he’s been carrying himself. But it’s okay if he goes a little boneless now, because Kurt is holding him up. Kurt listened (and not in the suck-up “active” way he’d said more to Miss Pillsbury than to Blaine — really listened). He heard Blaine.
As ridiculously in love with Kurt as Blaine is, he knows his boyfriend has his flaws, and sometimes — well, Kurt gets steamrollery, especially when he’s really excited about something. It can be hard to get through to him. But he let Blaine through, and he didn’t accuse Blaine of cruelty or of selfishness, the way Blaine has been having nightmares about as graduation has crept closer and he has felt himself growing lonelier and angrier.
Kurt rubs his back. A locker slams out in the hall. Blaine sniffs in a weak attempt at pulling himself back together, and he forces himself to raise his head and push himself out of the warmth of Kurt’s arms. Kurt looks steadily back at him, still leaned almost all the way out of his chair, holding himself up with a hand braced against the armrest of Blaine’s. His eyes are red-rimmed and watery, his face blotchy in that way it gets when he cries. Blaine gives him a wobbly (but very genuine) smile, which Kurt returns, and they turn to face the source of the polite paper-shuffling that has been going on for at least the last 10 or 15 seconds.
Miss Pillsbury stops pretending to pay attention to her paperwork, blinking, and she sets her neat stack of papers on the desk directly in front of herself. “So!” she says, clasping her hands over the papers. Blaine wipes at his eyes with his knuckle. “Do you both feel like you’ve adequately expressed your feelings here in the sharing space?” She nudges a box of Kleenex across the desk.
Blaine isn’t sure he has any more feelings left to express. He feels wrung out, his eyes hot and his chest hollow, though not in the same way it’s been for the last few weeks. He glances over at Kurt and they make hesitant eye contact for a second before Blaine gives him a tiny shrug-nod, meaning I do if you do.
“I think we’re satisfied on the sharing front right now,” Kurt says. He sounds a little shellshocked, but the way that he theatrically dabs at his eyes with a tissue is all Kurt and it makes Blaine smile to himself.
“Thank you,” Blaine adds, since it seems polite.
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” chirps Miss Pillsbury, and she opens a desk drawer and, after a moment’s rummaging, emerges with three brightly-colored pamphlets. She holds them out across the desk. Blaine eyes her hand dubiously, familiar with the pamphlets after his first day here (“Brylcreem: The Silent Killer” seemed awfully pointed), but Miss Pillsbury is well-meaning and has been really sweet to him and she did just manage to help them, so he slowly reaches out and takes them.
The top pamphlet has a cartoon of an angry-looking blond straight couple, each holding a phone to their ear with the coiled telephone cord separating them, under the cheerfully-printed title “LDR? FML!”
“Just a couple of pamphlets that I think might help,” Miss Pillsbury is saying. “And of course, you know that you can come back and see me anytime; I’m happy to provide guidance in any way that I can.”
“Of course,” Kurt says. Blaine thinks he’s trying to sound composed and adult, but he isn’t wholly successful.
Blaine decides not to look at the other pamphlets yet; they tend to break his brain more than he feels capable of dealing with right now. He bends down to tuck them into his bag. When he sits up straight again, he finds Miss Pillsbury fixing them both with an unnerving look. “What classes are you two missing right now?” she asks.
“Um, pre-calculus with Mr. Finnegan,” Blaine says. He doesn’t know where this is going; this was a pre-scheduled meeting and thus an excused absence.
“Study hall,” Kurt says, somehow managing to haughtily dismiss the class while looking confused (and still kind of blotchy, though Blaine would never tell him that).
“Uh huh,” says Miss Pillsbury thoughtfully. “Blaine, do you have any pop quizzes or graded material today?”
“I don’t think so,” he says, slowly. “When I left, Mr. Finnegan was still trying to convince everyone that mathematical matrices don’t have anything to do with Keanu Reeves.” And god, now that he says that, he does not relish the thought of having to go sit in that classroom after feeling so raw and exposed.
“Mmhmm, okay. Well, I’ll tell you what,” she says. “It seems to me like you two still have some sharing to do, and seeing as there are only about 45 minutes left in the school day anyway, I’d be comfortable with talking to your teachers and excusing you both. How does that sound?”
Blaine isn’t stupid; he’s aware that Miss Pillsbury is probably just trying to avoid sending them back to class looking like they’ve been crying and/or thinks that they’re going to cut anyway. He doesn’t really care why she’s doing it. He just feels a wave of relief and gratitude, which must be echoed by Kurt and come across in their expressions (Blaine doesn’t turn to look at Kurt, but he can feel his own smile spread), because her smile brightens.
“Oh god yes please,” says Kurt.
“That sounds great,” Blaine says. “Thank you, Miss Pillsbury.”
“Oh, it’s not a problem,” she says, now scribbling furiously on two hall passes. “We just won’t make a habit of it, okay?” Blaine picks up his things and rises, glancing over at Kurt. Kurt is looking at him, already standing with his bag strap thrown over his shoulder, and he gives Blaine a tiny smile that’s more of a slightly uncertain twitch of his mouth than anything, though it broadens when Blaine smiles back at him.
“And here we are.” Still sitting behind her perfectly-organized desk, Miss Pillsbury offers the hall passes. Kurt takes them. “Have a good afternoon,” she tells them, and Blaine has never met anyone who can simultaneously be so sprightly and so gentle. Then Kurt’s hand is on his elbow, and it’s all Blaine can do to coordinate his feet — as Kurt shepherds him out of the office — while aiming a little wave back at Miss Pillsbury.
Kurt doesn’t let go of his arm when they’re out in the hall. “Blaine,” he says, pulling him to a halt as soon as they’ve rounded the first corner away from the glass-walled office. His expression is fervent and not a little stricken, his eyes still pink. “I had no idea you felt like that.”
“Probably because I didn’t tell you,” Blaine points out, and Kurt half-smiles and glances down at their shoes. “And because of the NYADA tunnel vision, which — I get, seriously; it’s huge, Kurt, and I’m really happy for you, and—” Brett Howard turns the corner up ahead, wearing a huge pair of headphones and doing some bizarre kind of shuffle-step to whatever he’s listening to, humming in one of the most tone-deaf drones Blaine has ever heard. “—and we should maybe talk about this in private.”
“Agreed,” Kurt says, mouth pulled into a moue of distaste as he momentarily watches Brett’s progress down the hall. “I’ll just get my coat and drop the keys to the Navigator in Finn’s locker.” He pauses. “Unless—?”
Blaine shakes his head firmly. He honestly can’t even face the idea of them splitting up long enough to take separate cars; not when they’ve finally talked and he’s finally decided to stop torturing himself with distance and he just wants (needs) to be close to Kurt. “No, you should definitely come with me.”
He’s rewarded by a smile; the one that shows Kurt’s teeth. “I was going to ask if you had your mom’s car today, but I’m glad you have such strong feelings,” Kurt says, and it’s a little teasing and a little flirty; enough that Blaine feels warm and can’t be that embarrassed about his misunderstanding.
“Oh,” he says, and he whuffs a quiet laugh. “Yeah; she’s in Boston til Monday and she took a car service to the airport.”
“Your house it is, then,” says Kurt. “I’ll meet you at your locker?”
Blaine nods, and this time, when Kurt walks away from him, he doesn’t tell himself to get used to the sight.
Blaine tends to drive with both hands on the wheel at ten and two, just the way he was taught, but when he rests his right hand on the cupholder between the two front seats at a red light on the way home, Kurt slips his hand in and interlaces their fingers, and that feels — well. Blaine is a good, attentive driver, and he takes his hand back when he needs it for signaling or for turns, so he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with squeezing Kurt’s hand tight for the rest of the drive.
They’re quiet, but it’s not a bad quiet; it’s not how quiet Blaine has felt for the last few weeks while Kurt has filled the silence with chatter about Broadway rush tickets and NYADA’s private vocal tutoring sessions and rants about neighborhoods in Brooklyn. This silence is still a little fraught and fragile, but Blaine vastly prefers it to hurt and obliviousness.
When he pulls into his driveway, he kills the engine and turns to Kurt. He isn’t sure which one of them leaned first, but suddenly they’re kissing across the front seat, mouths closed but with enough force that Kurt’s nose is smushed against Blaine’s cheek. Blaine raises his hand to cup Kurt’s jawline and tries valiantly not to get teary-eyed again.
“Okay,” Kurt breathes, almost against his lips, as he mirrors Blaine’s hand position. His hand is big, though, and when he goes to stroke along Blaine’s cheekbone with his thumb, he almost pokes Blaine in the eye instead. Blaine starts and there’s a startled half a beat and then Blaine starts to laugh, Kurt staring at him for several long seconds before he presses a hand to his own face and says, “Oh my god.”
“Come on,” says Blaine, gently peeling Kurt’s fingers away from his eyes. Kurt’s face is a little red, but he looks relieved, too, like that broke some of the tension for him the same way that it did for Blaine. “Let’s go inside before I have to dig out my eyepatch again.”
Kurt snorts and actually looks like he’s considering rolling his eyes, which Blaine takes as a good sign. The car rocks as they get out and Blaine fetches his bag from the backseat.
“I didn’t actually re-blind you, right?” Kurt asks as he comes around the hood of Blaine’s mom’s Subaru. He’s peering at Blaine’s face; mostly, Blaine thinks, for show.
Blaine bats his eyelashes at him to demonstrate his motor control. “My cornea is just as fine as it was this morning,” he promises. It’s only a ten-foot walk to the front door, but he offers his hand anyway. Kurt accepts it and steps in close to his side.
It takes longer to pull his house keys out of his bag and open the door when he only has one hand free, but Blaine isn’t willing to let go of Kurt. It’s overwhelming to be within each others’ space like this again without constant thoughts about how he should be stepping back; his heart still aches in his chest, but it’s not the same. Not when he has the memory of the absolute honesty shining out of Kurt’s face as he leaned in and told Blaine that he won’t be alone and he isn’t going to lose Kurt.
Once inside, Blaine doesn’t stop to let either of them take off their shoes, the way they always do in deference to his mom’s feelings about her white carpets; he just tugs his hand and pulls him up to his room. Once inside, he shuts the door by force of habit, and when he turns around, Kurt has already put his bag on the chair by the bed and is unbuttoning his coat.
Kurt got a head start, but Blaine is faster thanks to being less picky about his outerwear; he strips out of his coat and scarf and sits on the edge of his bed, and holds out his hands when Kurt looks like he isn’t completely sure where he’s welcome. Blaine scoots backward while Kurt toes off his shoes and crawls up, and they wind up sitting with their knees touching, Blaine cross-legged and Kurt perched on his own feet, holding each others’ hands across their laps.
“Didn’t we used to have a complete honesty policy with each other?” Kurt asks into the silence, with a tiny huff.
Blaine smiles a little bit. “We should definitely revive that.”
He nods faintly, and then from the pause and the faint lines that form between his eyebrows, Blaine knows that Kurt is picking his words carefully. “Blaine — why didn’t you tell me how you were feeling?” As far as Blaine can tell, there’s no judgment in his face or his tone; just caution.
“I don’t know; I guess — I felt bad, about being sad and angry,” Blaine says. “It felt selfish when you were so excited, and I was so excited for you, and I still am, but—” He doesn’t know the best way to phrase it -- he hasn't practiced this -- and he stops for a minute, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. When he glances up again, Kurt is waiting, his head ducked and his eyes unerringly on Blaine’s face. That, even more than anything else that has happened in the last hour, makes Blaine feel better. He knows it hasn’t been more than a few weeks and that it was at least in part precipitated by his own actions, pulling away, but it feels like it’s been forever since he’s been the total focus of Kurt’s attention.
“I’ve been really scared that you’re going to forget me,” Blaine finishes, quiet.
Kurt is shaking his head almost before Blaine is even done with the sentence. “I could never forget you,” he promises fiercely, gripping Blaine’s hands tight. “You’re amazing and I love you, and I am excited about all of the New York possibilities, but I hate that I have to leave you.”
“That’s all I wanted to hear,” he tells him thickly, feeling his voice waver again the way it had in Miss Pillsbury’s office. He sees about a half a second of Kurt’s face crumpling before Kurt pulls him in.
It’s different than the hug they’d shared before. Their legs are all tangled up where they’re kneeling on the bed, Blaine half-sitting on one of Kurt’s thighs, and they’re as pressed together as humanly possible. Kurt is holding him so tight that it’s on the edge of too much, which is exactly what Blaine needs right now; it must be exactly what Kurt needs, too, given that Blaine is clutching back just as desperately and there are no complaints about lung capacity or fabric wrinkles.
“We are going to be fine,” Kurt says in his ear. His voice is high and thin with tears but so sure that Blaine can’t help but believe it. “Better than fine; we’re going to continue to be fabulous, Blaine. We’ll talk all the time and see each other as often as possible, and then in a year you’ll be there to help keep me from murdering Rachel when she has a breakdown every other week about how unappreciated her talent is.”
Blaine laughs wetly. “I can do that,” he says, and Kurt sniffles and squeezes him around the waist. The wave of fondness and love that surges up in Blaine’s chest hurts. Arms still locked around Kurt, he lets himself fall back. Kurt yelps, pulled with him, and Blaine thuds into his pillows with Kurt on top of him.
Kurt pushes himself up on his forearms and tries to fix the swoop of his hair. Blaine laughs softly and reaches up and pats one piece of hair back into place. Kurt smiles down at him, tear tracks on his face.
“So from now on, honesty?” Blaine says.
“Honesty,” Kurt agrees.
“So you’ll tell me when you’re feeling unappreciated.”
Guilt flashes across Kurt’s face; Blaine tries to smooth it away with his thumb. “As long as you tell me when you’re feeling left behind.” Blaine nods back at him. “And I’ll stop texting Chandler.”
He feels something finally settle in the pit of his stomach. “Thank you,” he says, soft.
“And I’ll try not to snap my fingers at waiters.” Kurt shoots him a beady-eyed look. “But I make no promises on the tinted moisturizer.”
Blaine just looks at him for a second before a slow, sly smile creeps across Kurt’s face and Blaine realizes that he’s (mostly) kidding; Blaine laughs and shakes his head at the ceiling for a second. “You do know I was using that lotion for more than just my hands, right?”
Kurt’s frown is quizzical. “You made it very clear that you don’t use it on your face,” he points out.
Blaine raises his eyebrows and squints at him, pointedly not glancing at the bottle of lotion in question.
“—Oh my god.”
“Now you get it.”
“Oh my god! Blaine!” Kurt protests, ridiculously scandalized given the states of undress that they’ve seen each other in over the last four months. He does, though, start to laugh after a few seconds, which makes it very easy for Blaine to tip them both over onto their sides and then slot a leg in between Kurt’s.
“I thought I had a disease, Kurt!” It’s definitely funnier now than it was at the time, though, and his complaints are probably undermined by the fact that he’s winding his arms around Kurt’s neck as he makes them.
“I’m sorry,” Kurt says. “God. I solemnly swear I’ll never put bronzer in your moisturizer again.” He pauses. “Even though it would—” Whatever he sees in Blaine’s expression makes him stop mid-sentence, and they look at each other for a long moment. “I’m sorry,” he says again, quieter, and Blaine is pretty sure he’s not just apologizing for turning certain parts of Blaine’s anatomy orange. They’re sharing one of Blaine’s pillows, and Kurt’s face is so soft and open and aching that Blaine clutches at the back of the collar of his blazer.
“I’m sorry, too,” Blaine tells him, curling in closer til Kurt puts his hand on his hip and they can rest their foreheads together. He shuts his eyes and lets himself enjoy the long, slow sweep of Kurt’s hand on his side, up and down, up and down, light and hypnotic.
“—Blaine,” Kurt’s voice says, as if he has said it several times now.
Blaine blinks fuzzily. “What?”
“What time is your dad getting home?”
“He said after midnight,” he replies automatically. “He has some — thing in Columbus that’s supposed to run late. Did I fall asleep?”
“I think so,” Kurt says, and he’s reaching back behind himself, stretching to put something on the bedside table. “My dad, on the other hand, is actually in Ohio tonight, so I set an alarm to make sure I leave before he calls out the National Guard.” There is a pause. “Is that something that he could potentially do now?”
The something on the table beeps and Kurt leans back into Blaine’s space again, thumb stroking patterns into his sweater over his waist. His eyes look tired and his hair is completely flattened on one side of his head, and he has pulled Blaine’s throw over their entwined legs.
“I think only the governor has the power to activate the National Guard, not individual members of Congress; we’re safe,” Blaine says, and Kurt smiles at him sleepily as Blaine leans in to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth.
If he keeps remembering that this is what life is going to be like in a year, Blaine thinks, it’s going to be a lot harder to have negative associations with New York.
Fandom: Glee
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Kurt Hummel/Blaine Anderson, Emma Pillsbury
Count: 3553 words
Summary: Blaine and Kurt finish a conversation in the guidance office and go forward from there. Also, there are pamphlets.
Notes: I just really needed cuddles after that episode, man.
* * *
“I’m sorry,” Kurt says softly, warm breath muffled by Blaine’s neck but clearly audible. Blaine digs his fingers into Kurt’s back, kind of a one-handed squeeze to signal that he heard.
For what feels like the first time in weeks, Blaine exhales all the way out, til he’s slumped with no air left in his lungs and all his muscles slowly beginning to loosen. He hadn’t realized til this moment how tense he has felt; how tightly-wound he’s been carrying himself. But it’s okay if he goes a little boneless now, because Kurt is holding him up. Kurt listened (and not in the suck-up “active” way he’d said more to Miss Pillsbury than to Blaine — really listened). He heard Blaine.
As ridiculously in love with Kurt as Blaine is, he knows his boyfriend has his flaws, and sometimes — well, Kurt gets steamrollery, especially when he’s really excited about something. It can be hard to get through to him. But he let Blaine through, and he didn’t accuse Blaine of cruelty or of selfishness, the way Blaine has been having nightmares about as graduation has crept closer and he has felt himself growing lonelier and angrier.
Kurt rubs his back. A locker slams out in the hall. Blaine sniffs in a weak attempt at pulling himself back together, and he forces himself to raise his head and push himself out of the warmth of Kurt’s arms. Kurt looks steadily back at him, still leaned almost all the way out of his chair, holding himself up with a hand braced against the armrest of Blaine’s. His eyes are red-rimmed and watery, his face blotchy in that way it gets when he cries. Blaine gives him a wobbly (but very genuine) smile, which Kurt returns, and they turn to face the source of the polite paper-shuffling that has been going on for at least the last 10 or 15 seconds.
Miss Pillsbury stops pretending to pay attention to her paperwork, blinking, and she sets her neat stack of papers on the desk directly in front of herself. “So!” she says, clasping her hands over the papers. Blaine wipes at his eyes with his knuckle. “Do you both feel like you’ve adequately expressed your feelings here in the sharing space?” She nudges a box of Kleenex across the desk.
Blaine isn’t sure he has any more feelings left to express. He feels wrung out, his eyes hot and his chest hollow, though not in the same way it’s been for the last few weeks. He glances over at Kurt and they make hesitant eye contact for a second before Blaine gives him a tiny shrug-nod, meaning I do if you do.
“I think we’re satisfied on the sharing front right now,” Kurt says. He sounds a little shellshocked, but the way that he theatrically dabs at his eyes with a tissue is all Kurt and it makes Blaine smile to himself.
“Thank you,” Blaine adds, since it seems polite.
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” chirps Miss Pillsbury, and she opens a desk drawer and, after a moment’s rummaging, emerges with three brightly-colored pamphlets. She holds them out across the desk. Blaine eyes her hand dubiously, familiar with the pamphlets after his first day here (“Brylcreem: The Silent Killer” seemed awfully pointed), but Miss Pillsbury is well-meaning and has been really sweet to him and she did just manage to help them, so he slowly reaches out and takes them.
The top pamphlet has a cartoon of an angry-looking blond straight couple, each holding a phone to their ear with the coiled telephone cord separating them, under the cheerfully-printed title “LDR? FML!”
“Just a couple of pamphlets that I think might help,” Miss Pillsbury is saying. “And of course, you know that you can come back and see me anytime; I’m happy to provide guidance in any way that I can.”
“Of course,” Kurt says. Blaine thinks he’s trying to sound composed and adult, but he isn’t wholly successful.
Blaine decides not to look at the other pamphlets yet; they tend to break his brain more than he feels capable of dealing with right now. He bends down to tuck them into his bag. When he sits up straight again, he finds Miss Pillsbury fixing them both with an unnerving look. “What classes are you two missing right now?” she asks.
“Um, pre-calculus with Mr. Finnegan,” Blaine says. He doesn’t know where this is going; this was a pre-scheduled meeting and thus an excused absence.
“Study hall,” Kurt says, somehow managing to haughtily dismiss the class while looking confused (and still kind of blotchy, though Blaine would never tell him that).
“Uh huh,” says Miss Pillsbury thoughtfully. “Blaine, do you have any pop quizzes or graded material today?”
“I don’t think so,” he says, slowly. “When I left, Mr. Finnegan was still trying to convince everyone that mathematical matrices don’t have anything to do with Keanu Reeves.” And god, now that he says that, he does not relish the thought of having to go sit in that classroom after feeling so raw and exposed.
“Mmhmm, okay. Well, I’ll tell you what,” she says. “It seems to me like you two still have some sharing to do, and seeing as there are only about 45 minutes left in the school day anyway, I’d be comfortable with talking to your teachers and excusing you both. How does that sound?”
Blaine isn’t stupid; he’s aware that Miss Pillsbury is probably just trying to avoid sending them back to class looking like they’ve been crying and/or thinks that they’re going to cut anyway. He doesn’t really care why she’s doing it. He just feels a wave of relief and gratitude, which must be echoed by Kurt and come across in their expressions (Blaine doesn’t turn to look at Kurt, but he can feel his own smile spread), because her smile brightens.
“Oh god yes please,” says Kurt.
“That sounds great,” Blaine says. “Thank you, Miss Pillsbury.”
“Oh, it’s not a problem,” she says, now scribbling furiously on two hall passes. “We just won’t make a habit of it, okay?” Blaine picks up his things and rises, glancing over at Kurt. Kurt is looking at him, already standing with his bag strap thrown over his shoulder, and he gives Blaine a tiny smile that’s more of a slightly uncertain twitch of his mouth than anything, though it broadens when Blaine smiles back at him.
“And here we are.” Still sitting behind her perfectly-organized desk, Miss Pillsbury offers the hall passes. Kurt takes them. “Have a good afternoon,” she tells them, and Blaine has never met anyone who can simultaneously be so sprightly and so gentle. Then Kurt’s hand is on his elbow, and it’s all Blaine can do to coordinate his feet — as Kurt shepherds him out of the office — while aiming a little wave back at Miss Pillsbury.
Kurt doesn’t let go of his arm when they’re out in the hall. “Blaine,” he says, pulling him to a halt as soon as they’ve rounded the first corner away from the glass-walled office. His expression is fervent and not a little stricken, his eyes still pink. “I had no idea you felt like that.”
“Probably because I didn’t tell you,” Blaine points out, and Kurt half-smiles and glances down at their shoes. “And because of the NYADA tunnel vision, which — I get, seriously; it’s huge, Kurt, and I’m really happy for you, and—” Brett Howard turns the corner up ahead, wearing a huge pair of headphones and doing some bizarre kind of shuffle-step to whatever he’s listening to, humming in one of the most tone-deaf drones Blaine has ever heard. “—and we should maybe talk about this in private.”
“Agreed,” Kurt says, mouth pulled into a moue of distaste as he momentarily watches Brett’s progress down the hall. “I’ll just get my coat and drop the keys to the Navigator in Finn’s locker.” He pauses. “Unless—?”
Blaine shakes his head firmly. He honestly can’t even face the idea of them splitting up long enough to take separate cars; not when they’ve finally talked and he’s finally decided to stop torturing himself with distance and he just wants (needs) to be close to Kurt. “No, you should definitely come with me.”
He’s rewarded by a smile; the one that shows Kurt’s teeth. “I was going to ask if you had your mom’s car today, but I’m glad you have such strong feelings,” Kurt says, and it’s a little teasing and a little flirty; enough that Blaine feels warm and can’t be that embarrassed about his misunderstanding.
“Oh,” he says, and he whuffs a quiet laugh. “Yeah; she’s in Boston til Monday and she took a car service to the airport.”
“Your house it is, then,” says Kurt. “I’ll meet you at your locker?”
Blaine nods, and this time, when Kurt walks away from him, he doesn’t tell himself to get used to the sight.
Blaine tends to drive with both hands on the wheel at ten and two, just the way he was taught, but when he rests his right hand on the cupholder between the two front seats at a red light on the way home, Kurt slips his hand in and interlaces their fingers, and that feels — well. Blaine is a good, attentive driver, and he takes his hand back when he needs it for signaling or for turns, so he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with squeezing Kurt’s hand tight for the rest of the drive.
They’re quiet, but it’s not a bad quiet; it’s not how quiet Blaine has felt for the last few weeks while Kurt has filled the silence with chatter about Broadway rush tickets and NYADA’s private vocal tutoring sessions and rants about neighborhoods in Brooklyn. This silence is still a little fraught and fragile, but Blaine vastly prefers it to hurt and obliviousness.
When he pulls into his driveway, he kills the engine and turns to Kurt. He isn’t sure which one of them leaned first, but suddenly they’re kissing across the front seat, mouths closed but with enough force that Kurt’s nose is smushed against Blaine’s cheek. Blaine raises his hand to cup Kurt’s jawline and tries valiantly not to get teary-eyed again.
“Okay,” Kurt breathes, almost against his lips, as he mirrors Blaine’s hand position. His hand is big, though, and when he goes to stroke along Blaine’s cheekbone with his thumb, he almost pokes Blaine in the eye instead. Blaine starts and there’s a startled half a beat and then Blaine starts to laugh, Kurt staring at him for several long seconds before he presses a hand to his own face and says, “Oh my god.”
“Come on,” says Blaine, gently peeling Kurt’s fingers away from his eyes. Kurt’s face is a little red, but he looks relieved, too, like that broke some of the tension for him the same way that it did for Blaine. “Let’s go inside before I have to dig out my eyepatch again.”
Kurt snorts and actually looks like he’s considering rolling his eyes, which Blaine takes as a good sign. The car rocks as they get out and Blaine fetches his bag from the backseat.
“I didn’t actually re-blind you, right?” Kurt asks as he comes around the hood of Blaine’s mom’s Subaru. He’s peering at Blaine’s face; mostly, Blaine thinks, for show.
Blaine bats his eyelashes at him to demonstrate his motor control. “My cornea is just as fine as it was this morning,” he promises. It’s only a ten-foot walk to the front door, but he offers his hand anyway. Kurt accepts it and steps in close to his side.
It takes longer to pull his house keys out of his bag and open the door when he only has one hand free, but Blaine isn’t willing to let go of Kurt. It’s overwhelming to be within each others’ space like this again without constant thoughts about how he should be stepping back; his heart still aches in his chest, but it’s not the same. Not when he has the memory of the absolute honesty shining out of Kurt’s face as he leaned in and told Blaine that he won’t be alone and he isn’t going to lose Kurt.
Once inside, Blaine doesn’t stop to let either of them take off their shoes, the way they always do in deference to his mom’s feelings about her white carpets; he just tugs his hand and pulls him up to his room. Once inside, he shuts the door by force of habit, and when he turns around, Kurt has already put his bag on the chair by the bed and is unbuttoning his coat.
Kurt got a head start, but Blaine is faster thanks to being less picky about his outerwear; he strips out of his coat and scarf and sits on the edge of his bed, and holds out his hands when Kurt looks like he isn’t completely sure where he’s welcome. Blaine scoots backward while Kurt toes off his shoes and crawls up, and they wind up sitting with their knees touching, Blaine cross-legged and Kurt perched on his own feet, holding each others’ hands across their laps.
“Didn’t we used to have a complete honesty policy with each other?” Kurt asks into the silence, with a tiny huff.
Blaine smiles a little bit. “We should definitely revive that.”
He nods faintly, and then from the pause and the faint lines that form between his eyebrows, Blaine knows that Kurt is picking his words carefully. “Blaine — why didn’t you tell me how you were feeling?” As far as Blaine can tell, there’s no judgment in his face or his tone; just caution.
“I don’t know; I guess — I felt bad, about being sad and angry,” Blaine says. “It felt selfish when you were so excited, and I was so excited for you, and I still am, but—” He doesn’t know the best way to phrase it -- he hasn't practiced this -- and he stops for a minute, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. When he glances up again, Kurt is waiting, his head ducked and his eyes unerringly on Blaine’s face. That, even more than anything else that has happened in the last hour, makes Blaine feel better. He knows it hasn’t been more than a few weeks and that it was at least in part precipitated by his own actions, pulling away, but it feels like it’s been forever since he’s been the total focus of Kurt’s attention.
“I’ve been really scared that you’re going to forget me,” Blaine finishes, quiet.
Kurt is shaking his head almost before Blaine is even done with the sentence. “I could never forget you,” he promises fiercely, gripping Blaine’s hands tight. “You’re amazing and I love you, and I am excited about all of the New York possibilities, but I hate that I have to leave you.”
“That’s all I wanted to hear,” he tells him thickly, feeling his voice waver again the way it had in Miss Pillsbury’s office. He sees about a half a second of Kurt’s face crumpling before Kurt pulls him in.
It’s different than the hug they’d shared before. Their legs are all tangled up where they’re kneeling on the bed, Blaine half-sitting on one of Kurt’s thighs, and they’re as pressed together as humanly possible. Kurt is holding him so tight that it’s on the edge of too much, which is exactly what Blaine needs right now; it must be exactly what Kurt needs, too, given that Blaine is clutching back just as desperately and there are no complaints about lung capacity or fabric wrinkles.
“We are going to be fine,” Kurt says in his ear. His voice is high and thin with tears but so sure that Blaine can’t help but believe it. “Better than fine; we’re going to continue to be fabulous, Blaine. We’ll talk all the time and see each other as often as possible, and then in a year you’ll be there to help keep me from murdering Rachel when she has a breakdown every other week about how unappreciated her talent is.”
Blaine laughs wetly. “I can do that,” he says, and Kurt sniffles and squeezes him around the waist. The wave of fondness and love that surges up in Blaine’s chest hurts. Arms still locked around Kurt, he lets himself fall back. Kurt yelps, pulled with him, and Blaine thuds into his pillows with Kurt on top of him.
Kurt pushes himself up on his forearms and tries to fix the swoop of his hair. Blaine laughs softly and reaches up and pats one piece of hair back into place. Kurt smiles down at him, tear tracks on his face.
“So from now on, honesty?” Blaine says.
“Honesty,” Kurt agrees.
“So you’ll tell me when you’re feeling unappreciated.”
Guilt flashes across Kurt’s face; Blaine tries to smooth it away with his thumb. “As long as you tell me when you’re feeling left behind.” Blaine nods back at him. “And I’ll stop texting Chandler.”
He feels something finally settle in the pit of his stomach. “Thank you,” he says, soft.
“And I’ll try not to snap my fingers at waiters.” Kurt shoots him a beady-eyed look. “But I make no promises on the tinted moisturizer.”
Blaine just looks at him for a second before a slow, sly smile creeps across Kurt’s face and Blaine realizes that he’s (mostly) kidding; Blaine laughs and shakes his head at the ceiling for a second. “You do know I was using that lotion for more than just my hands, right?”
Kurt’s frown is quizzical. “You made it very clear that you don’t use it on your face,” he points out.
Blaine raises his eyebrows and squints at him, pointedly not glancing at the bottle of lotion in question.
“—Oh my god.”
“Now you get it.”
“Oh my god! Blaine!” Kurt protests, ridiculously scandalized given the states of undress that they’ve seen each other in over the last four months. He does, though, start to laugh after a few seconds, which makes it very easy for Blaine to tip them both over onto their sides and then slot a leg in between Kurt’s.
“I thought I had a disease, Kurt!” It’s definitely funnier now than it was at the time, though, and his complaints are probably undermined by the fact that he’s winding his arms around Kurt’s neck as he makes them.
“I’m sorry,” Kurt says. “God. I solemnly swear I’ll never put bronzer in your moisturizer again.” He pauses. “Even though it would—” Whatever he sees in Blaine’s expression makes him stop mid-sentence, and they look at each other for a long moment. “I’m sorry,” he says again, quieter, and Blaine is pretty sure he’s not just apologizing for turning certain parts of Blaine’s anatomy orange. They’re sharing one of Blaine’s pillows, and Kurt’s face is so soft and open and aching that Blaine clutches at the back of the collar of his blazer.
“I’m sorry, too,” Blaine tells him, curling in closer til Kurt puts his hand on his hip and they can rest their foreheads together. He shuts his eyes and lets himself enjoy the long, slow sweep of Kurt’s hand on his side, up and down, up and down, light and hypnotic.
“—Blaine,” Kurt’s voice says, as if he has said it several times now.
Blaine blinks fuzzily. “What?”
“What time is your dad getting home?”
“He said after midnight,” he replies automatically. “He has some — thing in Columbus that’s supposed to run late. Did I fall asleep?”
“I think so,” Kurt says, and he’s reaching back behind himself, stretching to put something on the bedside table. “My dad, on the other hand, is actually in Ohio tonight, so I set an alarm to make sure I leave before he calls out the National Guard.” There is a pause. “Is that something that he could potentially do now?”
The something on the table beeps and Kurt leans back into Blaine’s space again, thumb stroking patterns into his sweater over his waist. His eyes look tired and his hair is completely flattened on one side of his head, and he has pulled Blaine’s throw over their entwined legs.
“I think only the governor has the power to activate the National Guard, not individual members of Congress; we’re safe,” Blaine says, and Kurt smiles at him sleepily as Blaine leans in to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth.
If he keeps remembering that this is what life is going to be like in a year, Blaine thinks, it’s going to be a lot harder to have negative associations with New York.