![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wowbrightTitle: Everything's Connected, If Only You Can Feel It
Characters/Fandom: Kurt/Blaine, Stoner Brett
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~5,500
Spoilers: 4.03, “Makeover"
Summary: Blaine takes up a new hobby in hopes of becoming closer to Kurt, despite the distance between Lima and New York. Stoner Brett turns out to be a surprisingly erudite, if flawed, mentor. Blangst with humor, or humor with Blangst – I'm not sure which.
A/N: Reaction fic to 4.03. Thanks to The-Multicorn for betaing, gingerandfair for helping me figure out what this story was going to be about, and nachochang for encouraging me and trying to help me come up with a title in the middle of the night. You can find the canon reference to the club Blaine joins here.
-----
Kurt was as good as his word. They Skyped every day (often more than once), and texted as much as usual (and sexted more than they had before), and they kept up their time-honored practice of scheduling make-out sessions (even if the make-out sessions weren't quite as, well, hands-on as they'd been before).
Kurt did even more than that. Often, Blaine would come home from school to find pieces of Kurt's life in the mailbox. There were the touristy postcards: Brooklyn Bridge; clumps of wild grasses and coneflowers growing out of a railway trestle at High Line Park (it gave Blaine a sudden, inexplicable urge to study horticulture); a polar bear at Central Park Zoo who Kurt referred to as "Don Cheadle," for reasons Blaine couldn't quite figure out (but knew he would understand if he were with Kurt in person). There were envelopes filled with mementos of Kurt's new life, like the subway map with the route from Kurt's apartment to Vogue.com highlighted, along with the MetroCard Kurt had used on his first journey between the two locations. There were short, hand-written love letters that said nothing and almost everything and smelled a little like Kurt's hand lotion.
Blaine pinned them all to a bulletin board above his bed, where they served as an ever-present reminder of Kurt – and an ever-present reminder of how far away Kurt was.
One evening, as they sat down to watch Treme together on HBOgo, Kurt looked at Blaine intensely (but not into his eyes – that would require looking into the camera, and if Kurt looked into the camera, he wouldn't be seeing Blaine. That was the awful thing about Skype; they could never look into each other's eyes at the same time. Sometimes, it made Blaine want to throw his computer against the wall.)
"Blaine," Kurt said, "is it weird that I feel sometimes that being in New York, I'm closer to you that if I'd stayed in Lima?"
Blaine wanted to say Yes, or maybe What the hell are you talking about? You're so far away and all I do is walk the halls of McKinley expecting your face around every corner and it's never there, or It hurts to go to the Lima Bean without you, but instead, he says, "How so?"
"I was shutting down there. I wasn't myself."
Blaine nodded. He understood shutting down.
"I feel like, here, I'm becoming more myself again. So I can – I don't know. I feel like I have more of myself to share with you now, if that makes sense."
Blaine didn't know what to say. Kurt was opening and Blaine was closing, becoming smaller and closer to a nonentity each day. He had nothing to share with Kurt but boring, predictable stories about Mr. Schuester and Brittany and who was the latest couple to get detention for making out in the astronomy room.
But Blaine had to say something. So he did. "Yeah," he said. "That makes sense."
-----
An hour after their Tuesday night Skype call had ended, Blaine's phone buzzed with an incoming email from Kurt. "I told you about the bike. Thought it was time for you to see me on it. I've become more attached to this thing than I was to the Navigator," followed by a private YouTube link.
The video started with Kurt pedaling circles around his loft. The bike was black, like the Navigator, with a finish just as shiny, but with white tires that were going to be a struggle to keep clean in the smog and ash of New York City. (Still, Blaine had no doubt that Kurt would.) It looked retro – and yet there was also something thoroughly modern about it that Blaine couldn't put his finger on. It suited Kurt well, fitting into his ensemble as perfectly as his polished wingtips and his black bowtie.
Blaine's heart skipped when he saw his boyfriend's long legs moving, his neck craning, his weight shifting as the bike turned the corners of the room. Blaine held his fingers to the screen, aching to break through it, to touch Kurt's body, feel the warmth of his muscles, the aliveness of his skin.
It wasn't a particularly sexual feeling (although nothing could be completely divorced from sex with Kurt). He just missed Kurt's touch so much. Blaine was terrible with words – every time he'd ever tried to explain his feelings, he could only come up with a pale approximation of them (I love you would never be enough to explain how he felt). So most of the time, he said nothing at all.
But touch was different. It didn't intimidate Blaine the way that words did. When he was lonely or scared and couldn't explain why, all he had to do was reach for Kurt's hand, and Kurt understood.
Or, that's the way things had been, before 600 miles came between them.
The screen went black, and Kurt was outside – in a different outfit, this time, but one that the bike suited just as well. The camera was jostling a little, looking at Kurt from behind, and then there was Rachel's voice calling out for Kurt to turn around and smile. Kurt did finally turn around when they came to a stop light – oh, Blaine hadn't realized how much he'd missed seeing Kurt twist that way – but he didn't smile. "Are you going to put that thing down and start looking where you're going, Miss Berry?"
"No," Rachel answered, the camera never veering from Kurt's playfully scowling visage. "Not until I get a close-up of your ass to send to Blaine."
Rachel didn't quite manage a close-up, but after the light turned green, she held the camera so that it was mostly pointed at Kurt's ass for the better part of a minute. Kurt stood up on the pedals to give Blaine a better view.
The scene switched. The camera was looking up at Kurt's face now, tall buildings moving backward behind his head. "Hi Blaine," Kurt shouted, without looking down, over the din of wind and horns and whirring motors. "I found a little thing for mounting my phone to my handlebars. It really comes in handy for reading maps. And for recording pointless videos for my boyfriend. Just thought I'd show you a little of my route to my favorite bodega." The buildings stopped moving behind Kurt, and Kurt's hands came over the camera, twisting it until it faced forward to the street. "New York City, the place I call home," Kurt said as the camera pushed forward.
Blaine's throat felt like there was something stuck in it.
Before meeting Kurt, Blaine had never really felt at home anywhere – not with his parents, not with Cooper, not even at Dalton – except for the few months that Kurt was there. When he'd left Dalton for McKinley, and Warbler Thad had asked him why, Blaine had answered without thinking, "I need to go home."
Thad had looked at him confusedly. "How is McKinley home? That's not your old school."
"Kurt's there," was all Blaine said in reply.
-----
There were no bicycles in the Anderson home. Blaine's had been given to Goodwill when he was 10 – he'd outgrown the tiny thing by then – and he'd never seen his parents on one.
Over dinner, Blaine asked, "Can I get a bike?"
"They're dangerous, Blaine," his mother said.
"So is boxing," he said.
"Fists aren't the same as cars," his father said.
Blaine quit while he was ahead. If he kept pressing them, they might actually say no.
If they didn't say no, he couldn't disobey them.
----
Blaine wasn't sure what "fixie" meant. The Fixie Club poster didn't explain it; most of its space was taken up by the clipart silhouette of a racing bicycle, followed by the words "Fixie Your Life" in all-caps Helvetica and, at the very bottom, the hand-scrawled meeting time and location.
Even though he'd already signed up for eight new clubs in the past two weeks, he decided to add another one to his roster. If it had something to do with bicycling, Blaine was in. He couldn't eat the food Kurt was eating or drink New York's magical municipal water with him or wake up beside him to the sound of pigeons cooing on the windowsill; he couldn't kiss Kurt or hold him, share the heat of their bodies inside a cocoon of bedding; he couldn't stand next to Kurt and smell the flowers on the High Line or snark at the antics of Vogue staffers.
But maybe, if he got on a bike, he would understand a little of what Kurt's life was like. And maybe, finally, he'd feel like Kurt wasn't so far away.
On Thursday afternoon, he braved his way to the uncharted territory of McKinley High School's vocational wing to room E3: the metal shop. The acrid smell of propane and brazed steel reminded Blaine of Mr. Hummel's tire shop. It was comforting.
There were six kids already in there, crowded around a couple of bicycle frames hanging from stands. A redhead in a ski cap looked up and smiled. "Hey! It's bow-tie guy!"
It was Stoner Brett.
Blaine smiled back, although he felt like running away. "Blaine." He stepped forward and held out his hand. "Blaine Anderson."
Brett wiped his own hand on the front of his apron, which didn't do much to remove the black grease from his fingers, and shook Blaine's hand. "What up, dog? We'd better get you an apron. Don't want to muss up your sweater vest. That thing is sharp."
"Um, okay." Blaine rubbed his left hand over the back of his hair to make sure none of the curls had started to pop out. "What exactly do you guys do here, anyway?"
"We become one with our bicycles, dude," Brett said, as if the answer should have been obvious.
----
Over the next few meetings, Brett took Blaine under his wing and tried to introduce him to the wonderful world of fixies. He helped Blaine pick out a right-sized bike frame from the pile that Fixie Club members had accumulated over the summer by scouting the curbs on trash day. Brett scrounged through boxes of handlebars and stems and seats and helped Blaine figure out which ones worked the best. As he put them all together, he tried to explain to Blaine what he was doing.
The problem was that Blaine couldn't understand half of what Brett said.
"What makes a fixie different from other bicycles?" Blaine asked as he tightened his front wheel into the – what were they called again? Dropouts? – of the dinged-up silver frame. It had the name Univega emblazoned on it; the name made Blaine think of the constellation Vega, one of the brightest stars in the night sky, and that made Blaine think of Kurt – because bright stars always made him think of Kurt.
Brett, who was measuring a length of chain to run between the pedals and the rear wheel, looked up. "A fixie is like the Force, young Skywalker. The fixie is not outside of you. It is part of you."
Fortunately, there were other kids in the Fixie Club who were a little more lucid.
"'Fixie' is short for 'fixed gear,'" piped up Dan, a tall, skinny white guy with horn-rimmed glasses who wore tight t-shirts with logos from antique 1980s video games and always had the right leg of his jeans rolled up to reveal the bike-chain tattoo circling his calf. "Most bikes have gear-shifters, so if you're going up a hill, you can lower your gear and it gets a little easier to pedal. Or if you're going down a hill, you can raise the gear and you get more power with each pedal stroke, so you go faster. Or if you're feeling lazy, you just stop pedaling and cruise down the hill. But with a fixie, you can't shift gears and you can't stop pedaling, or the bike will stop. The bike moves as fast as your legs move – no faster, no slower."
Brett nodded his head ponderously. "The fixie becomes a reflection of your will, just like the Force. See, young Skywalker?"
Blaine didn't see, exactly, but he nodded as if he did.
----
It took a lot less time than Blaine would have expected to throw a bicycle together from parts. Brett said this was because fixies are the "epitome of simplicity"; Dan said it was because there were no brakes or derailleurs or cogsets or cables to worry about.
Blaine had no idea what a derailleur or a cogset were so, for once, Brett's explanation made more sense to Blaine than Dan's did.
They took Blaine out to the parking lot to teach him to ride. Dan dangled a helmet out at him. Blaine crinkled his nose. "How many people have worn that before me?"
"It's not me telling you to wear the helmet," said Dan, scratching his soul patch. "It's the school. Liability. If any of us get caught without one on, they shut down the club."
Blaine sighed and put it on.
"Anyway, I'm pretty sure any germs that live in this helmet couldn't crawl through the barrier of shellac you put on your hair."
Blaine didn't laugh. But he didn't cringe, either. He thought that maybe, after a few more meetings, he might be ready to crack a joke about Dan's obsession with Atari.
Blaine leaned his Univega against his hip as Brett mounted his own bike – the frame and wheels were spray-painted a rusty orange that matched Brett's hair ("To remind me that I and the bike are the same," Brett had explained the first time he'd shown it to Blaine) – and pedaled easily around the near-empty lot, occasionally circling a lone SUV or beaten-up coupe. His legs moved constantly – sometimes fast, sometimes slow – the bike matching whatever pace he set. When he stopped moving, so did the bike – but Brett didn't step down from it. He lifted his ass off of the seat and stood up on the pedals, the muscles in his legs and arms and torso vibrating like fine strings as he balanced himself and the bike, never letting it tip too far to the right or the left. The bike remained so upright, it seemed to levitate.
Blaine had never seen anything like it.
"Why isn't the bike falling over?" Blaine said.
"Do you fall over when you stand still?" Brett said, still standing on his pedals.
"Um, no?" Blaine said.
"Then why should I fall over when I stand still?"
"Because you're on a bike. And a bike is – it doesn't have feet."
Blaine heard Dan snort from behind him.
Brett shook his head in disappointment. "The Force, young Skywalker. Use the Force. It binds all things together."
Blaine shook his head. "I thought the fixie was the Force."
Brett hopped the bike forward a few inches, then stood it still again. "The Force is in everything. It connects us all. The fixie just helps us to feel it."
Blaine had the urge to pick up his bike and throw it at Brett, but he didn't. Instead, with Dan's prodding, he rolled up his right pant leg and got on his Univega – not quite sure if he was ready to learn to ride again, but willing to give it a shot.
-----
Dan gave Blaine the practical coaching through his first spin on the fixie; Brett did wheelies around the parking lot and occasionally offered up a platitude about the Force. "Whatever you do," Dan said as they pushed off on their bikes, "don't stop pedaling unless you're ready to stop moving."
Blaine's maiden voyage around the parking lot was less than auspicious. Three times, he stopped pedaling without meaning to, causing the bike to stop suddenly, tip over, and crash Blaine to the ground.
Lucky for Blaine, boxing had given him a lot of practice falling down.
By their sixth circle around the lot, Blaine felt like he might, possibly, get the hang of this one day. He loosened his grip on the handlebars just enough so that his knuckles were no longer so white.
By the tenth time around, he was confident enough to speak and pedal at the same time. "That thing that Brett keeps doing –"
"Standing still on his bike?" Dan said.
"Yeah. Is that – can you do that?"
"Everyone who rides a fixie learns to do that sooner or later," Dan said. "It's called a track stand. I'll teach it to you once you've learned how to stop this thing."
Blaine lost count of how many times he fell down that afternoon. Brett helped him up from the last fall. "As long as you keep telling yourself you and the bike are separate, you'll keep falling down. Feel the connection, young Skywalker."
-----
Blaine told Kurt about learning to ride again.
"Oh my god, Blaine, that's awesome! Tell me more!"
It made Blaine's heart feel warm. He hadn't seen Kurt get this excited about something not related to New York in weeks. He felt his own smile reaching all the way to his ears.
So Blaine told him. He told Kurt about learning to balance again.
In New York, Kurt bounced excitedly on his bed, making the laptop camera bounce a little with him. Blaine had to close his eyes to keep from getting dizzy. "Oh my god!" Kurt practically squealed, in a way that only Kurt could – husky and adorable, like the excitement was pushing against his throat and he just couldn't keep it in. "I know exactly what you're talking about! It was probably a little different with my bike because mine's the kind I grew up with, but still – I was so scared the first time I took it out on the street!"
Blaine chuckled. "Kurt, I've seen you balance on a tight rope."
"But it's different with a hunk of metal between your legs!" Kurt effused, then bit his lip. "Did that sound racy? That sounded kind of racy, didn't it? Oh my god, speaking of racy, did I tell you …" and, as he tended to do when he got excited, Kurt got distracted. The conversation turned into a story about some fashion shoot for Vogue.com and a phallic piece of jewelry and a mishap that occurred with the model's top and … Blaine kind of lost track after that.
Another night, Blaine told Kurt about his chipped silver Univega frame and how, in the winter when it started snowing, he might bring it back into the metal shop and paint it in gray pinstripes – unless Kurt thought that checkers would be better?
Kurt never answered the question. Instead, he latched onto the word "paint" and started rehashing a disagreement he'd had with Rachel about the color scheme for their loft.
The next week, Blaine told Kurt about biking to school and arguing with Brett over whether they should stop at stop signs, and Kurt launched into a diatribe about bike messengers and New York hipsters that Blaine could just barely follow.
Blaine tried to remind himself that he loved to hear Kurt talk. He'd always loved to hear Kurt talk. He hadn't been exaggerating when he'd told Kurt he was the most interesting kid in Ohio, and he wouldn't be exaggerating if he said, now, that Kurt was the most interesting man in New York.
(Anderson Cooper and Marc Jacobs and maybe even Robert DeNiro were pretty interesting, but they still couldn't hold a candle to Kurt.)
So Blaine couldn't understand why his mind started wandering when Kurt would talk. He was doing the same thing that he did last spring with Kurt, but he didn't know how to stop it or even if he wanted to – pulling away, shutting down, because every conversation they had turned back to Kurt and New York and how Kurt is in love with New York and how at home Kurt feels in New York .
How could Kurt feel at home in a place so far away from Blaine, when all of Ohio has become an alien country to Blaine now that Kurt was gone?
With every phone call and every Skype, Kurt repeated that he loved Blaine. He talked about the things they would do when Blaine moved to New York, daydreamed about the apartment they would rent and then the home that they would buy, and would Blaine prefer a high-rise condo in Manhattan or a brownstone in Brooklyn? – because Kurt could really see the benefits of both.
These were all signs of love, right? So why couldn't Blaine feel it?
"You're feelings deceive you, young Skywalker," Brett had said earlier that day when Blaine told him, after the second time he'd been thrown off his bike, that he certainly didn't feel like he was one with it.
Brett responded with a disappointed shake of his head. "You feel according to what you believe the world to be. Believe differently, understand the truth of the Force, and the feeling of oneness will follow."
-----
Blaine and Brett weren't exactly friends. Blaine wasn't even sure what "friend" meant, but he thought that mutual liking was supposed to be in there somewhere. He wanted Brett to like him – he wanted everyone to like him – and thought that maybe Brett did. But he hadn't decided if he actually liked Brett yet.
He'd started stowing his bicycle at Brett's house. He'd drive there every morning (as far as his parents knew, Blaine was still driving all the way to school, and he figured they didn't really need to know the difference) and pull his Univega out of Brett's garage, practicing (and failing at) track stands in the driveway until Brett ambled out his front door. Brett was never stoned in the morning, but he was almost always late. Not late enough to make Blaine miss the beginning of first period, but late enough that he didn't always have time to get his hair back to looking how it should after he parked his bike.
They took back streets most of the way to school so that they would encounter as few cars as possible. It was a nice feeling, to be on those deserted residential streets and feel like they owned them. It was, however, very different from what Kurt experienced, biking in New York.
They were running later than usual this morning. Blaine had worked (hopelessly) on track stands for a full ten minutes before throwing his fixie down on the ground and stomping up Brett's porch steps to pound on the door.
"Brett," Blaine said cautiously as they slowed for a red light, "I know you probably view time differently than I do, but could you maybe be ready when you say you're going to be ready?" Blaine was getting better at paying attention to his legs and the bike, at understanding when to pedal harder and when to pedal slower, when to shift his weight a little more to the right or left. But it still didn't feel natural or effortless. He and his fixie were not one.
"I usually am," Brett said.
"Well, usually I wait in the driveway for a while before you come out."
Brett nosed his bike into the intersection, looked to the left and right, and signaled the all-clear to Blaine. "Yeah," he said when Blaine caught up with him across the way. "That's because I like to watch you practice."
"Wait," Blaine said. "You're telling me you're ready to go when I get to your house, but you stay inside and look out the window and watch me while I'm waiting for you?"
"Yup."
"Why?"
"Because I want to witness the moment when you and the bike become one."
Blaine shook his head – a little too vigorously, as it caused the handlebars to swerve. Blaine breathed deep and straightened his course. "You know that's not gonna happen, right? I'm not becoming one with a hunk of metal."
Brett sighed loudly. "A bike is more than metal. It's spirit, too. Dude, I thought with your people's beliefs and all, you'd be a little quicker on the uptake about that."
"My people's beliefs?"
"Yeah, you know. Like, we're all children of the Great Spirit, whether we're rocks or people or iron ore or trees or chipmunks. We're all connected. Isn't that what Native Americans believe?"
Blaine froze – which meant his legs froze, and the bike froze, too, its wheels ceasing to turn and bringing it to a quick halt before unceremoniously catapulting Blaine over its handlebars.
Fortunately, Blaine's experience dancing on furniture meant he could manage a somersault with no preamble. He rolled over a few times before planting his feet down on the street.
"Whoa, dude, you okay?" Brett hopped off his bike, dropping it next to Blaine's.
Blaine brushed off the arms of his tweed jacket. The fabric had picked up a few small specks of dirt and gravel, but he didn't see any rips. Brett reached out a hand. Blaine didn't take it. He pushed himself off the ground and walked back toward his bike. "My people are WASPs, who are by definition Protestant, and Filipinos, 84 percent of whom are Catholic. I'm pretty sure neither of those believe that rocks are children of the Great Spirit."
"Oh," said Brett, looking down at his feet dejectedly.
Blaine picked up his bike. "Also, if I was Native American, I'm pretty sure I'd be offended at the way you just tried to pigeonhole my beliefs."
Brett squatted down to grab his own bike off the ground. "I didn't mean any offense, man. I like Native Americans. And you don't look white, exactly, or black or Asian, and I saw this movie with Native Americans in it and one of them kind of looked like you so –"
Blaine glared at him.
"I'm digging myself into a bigger hole, huh?"
Blaine jumped on his bike and pushed off. "Honest to god, I think you make more sense when you're high."
Brett pedaled next to Blaine, silent. Blaine had the urge to peel off at the next corner and find a different route to school, but he didn't.
"You're right," Brett said after a few minutes of silence. "I probably do make more sense when I'm high. Everything makes more sense when I'm high. That's why I'm Stoner Brett."
Blaine wanted to stay mad at Brett. Instead, he felt his heart sink in sympathy. "Everything makes more sense when I'm drunk," he said, immediately wondering why he'd allowed the words to escape his mouth, even if they were true.
"I just –" Brett continued. "When I'm stoned, I see the Force, like, everywhere. I see how you and me are connected, even though you're smart and straight-laced and wear those weird bow-ties, and I'm, like, this ignoramus stoner kid who can't keep his shit together except when he's on his bike."
"You really believe this Force stuff, don't you?" Blaine said. "Even when you're not high?"
"It's not so much a matter of believing. It's just – when I'm not aware of the force, everything feels far apart and disconnected and life is just harder. Riding my bike is harder, listening to people is harder – blinking is harder. But when I remember the Force is there – things click. It's like, you know, physics is a lot easier to do when you just accept that gravity is real. My life is just easier when I accept that the Force is real."
Blaine nodded. It would be nice to have belief like that. He wondered if he ever would.
----
Three weeks into riding his fixie, Blaine did his first real, non-wobbly, 30-second track stand. He and Brett were at a red light, and Blaine didn't feel like putting his foot on the ground. So he didn't. He just stood there on his pedals, hands loosely wrapped around the handlebar grips, and breathed. He didn't pay attention to his legs or the way his stomach muscles clenched as they moved his torso a little to the left, a little forward, always keeping himself and the bike in balance. He just looked ahead at the red light and felt the wheels underneath him grip the pavement, refusing to let go.
The light turned green and Blaine pedaled forward. His legs moved, and so did the bike.
Brett let out an ear-shattering whoop. The neighborhood dogs barked out a response. "Young Skywalker, you and the Univega have become one!" He sped up, turning back around to ride a figure eight around Blaine. "You are a Jedi knight!"
Blaine felt almost as giddy as he did when he was drinking, as he did when he kissed Kurt and the rest of the world disappeared.
"What were you thinking as you waited for the light to change, young Jedi?"
Blaine laughed. "I wasn't thinking anything."
"A-ha!" Brett shouted, and the chorus of barking began anew. "This is the key, young Jedi. Stop thinking. Your thoughts deceive you. They tell you that you are separate from the bike. You believe you are separate from the bike, and you fall down!" He shouted the last two words, and there was more barking. Blaine wondered if the neighbors would bar him and Brett from ever biking down their street again. He didn't really care. This moment was worth it.
"Young Jedi, you have felt the Force. May the Force always be with you."
----
That night on the phone, Blaine didn't tell Kurt about his track stand. He didn't know how to explain it.
Anyway, it had been exhilarating in the moment, but now he felt a sense of loss. He wanted to feel it again, that strange ineffable sense of simply being, that he'd lost when he got off the bike at school and locked it in the rack.
He wanted to feel it now, with Kurt, the way he'd felt it a thousand times before with him – but hadn't felt once since Kurt had moved to New York.
"Where are you?" Blaine said after they exchanged their initial greetings.
"At home," Kurt said.
Home. There was that word again. Blaine was beginning to resent it. He cleared his throat. "Is Rachel there?"
"No. I think she's out gallivanting with Brody."
Blaine paused. "I was wondering if you would do something."
"What's that?" Kurt said. Blaine could hear something that sounded like a refrigerator opening and closing in the background.
"I was wondering if you could maybe go to your bed and lie down and put your hand out next to you, face down. And I'll lie here in my bed with my hand face up. And we could – I know this is weird, but I really miss being connected to you, and I thought – maybe we could hold hands?"
"Blaine." It was barely a whisper, but it was loud enough for Blaine to catch in it that tone of sweetness – of protectiveness – that Kurt reserved for him only. "Of course I can do that."
They were quiet for a minute as Kurt put away whatever he'd just gotten out of the refrigerator and walked over to his bed.
"I'm here now," Kurt said. "My hand is yours. What next?"
Blaine flexed his fingers, tried to wrap them around where Kurt's would be, tried to feel Kurt's palm against his. All he felt was air. "I don't know. I guess we can just … talk."
"Okay," Kurt said. So talk they did. The conversation wasn't much different from the usual – Blaine updated Kurt on Glee Club shenanigans and Kurt told him about New York. Blaine still felt a pang in his heart every time Kurt mentioned Vogue or Isabelle Wright or running errands with Rachel. He tried holding Kurt's hand tighter, to signal Kurt that he needed his reassurance, but Kurt must not have felt it on the other end of the phone line, because he kept talking happily about things that broke Blaine's heart.
There was a moment, though, toward the end of the conversation, when Blaine felt it. Kurt had asked him how the presidential debate went, and Blaine told him about standing up for hair gel and books and human rights.
"I'm proud of you, Blaine."
In that moment, Blaine forgot that Kurt was far away in New York, creating a new life without him. He forgot that he was alone in his bedroom, lonely and disconnected from the world.
He felt Kurt's palm warm against his, Kurt's long fingers wrapped firmly around the back of his hand.
He felt it as clearly as he felt the pillow against the back of his head or the phone against his ear.
He felt it, for that moment. His breath caught in his throat, and he thought he might cry. He turned his head to kiss Kurt.
But no one was there.
The solid weight of Kurt's hand in his evaporated and died.
Characters/Fandom: Kurt/Blaine, Stoner Brett
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~5,500
Spoilers: 4.03, “Makeover"
Summary: Blaine takes up a new hobby in hopes of becoming closer to Kurt, despite the distance between Lima and New York. Stoner Brett turns out to be a surprisingly erudite, if flawed, mentor. Blangst with humor, or humor with Blangst – I'm not sure which.
A/N: Reaction fic to 4.03. Thanks to The-Multicorn for betaing, gingerandfair for helping me figure out what this story was going to be about, and nachochang for encouraging me and trying to help me come up with a title in the middle of the night. You can find the canon reference to the club Blaine joins here.
-----
Kurt was as good as his word. They Skyped every day (often more than once), and texted as much as usual (and sexted more than they had before), and they kept up their time-honored practice of scheduling make-out sessions (even if the make-out sessions weren't quite as, well, hands-on as they'd been before).
Kurt did even more than that. Often, Blaine would come home from school to find pieces of Kurt's life in the mailbox. There were the touristy postcards: Brooklyn Bridge; clumps of wild grasses and coneflowers growing out of a railway trestle at High Line Park (it gave Blaine a sudden, inexplicable urge to study horticulture); a polar bear at Central Park Zoo who Kurt referred to as "Don Cheadle," for reasons Blaine couldn't quite figure out (but knew he would understand if he were with Kurt in person). There were envelopes filled with mementos of Kurt's new life, like the subway map with the route from Kurt's apartment to Vogue.com highlighted, along with the MetroCard Kurt had used on his first journey between the two locations. There were short, hand-written love letters that said nothing and almost everything and smelled a little like Kurt's hand lotion.
Blaine pinned them all to a bulletin board above his bed, where they served as an ever-present reminder of Kurt – and an ever-present reminder of how far away Kurt was.
One evening, as they sat down to watch Treme together on HBOgo, Kurt looked at Blaine intensely (but not into his eyes – that would require looking into the camera, and if Kurt looked into the camera, he wouldn't be seeing Blaine. That was the awful thing about Skype; they could never look into each other's eyes at the same time. Sometimes, it made Blaine want to throw his computer against the wall.)
"Blaine," Kurt said, "is it weird that I feel sometimes that being in New York, I'm closer to you that if I'd stayed in Lima?"
Blaine wanted to say Yes, or maybe What the hell are you talking about? You're so far away and all I do is walk the halls of McKinley expecting your face around every corner and it's never there, or It hurts to go to the Lima Bean without you, but instead, he says, "How so?"
"I was shutting down there. I wasn't myself."
Blaine nodded. He understood shutting down.
"I feel like, here, I'm becoming more myself again. So I can – I don't know. I feel like I have more of myself to share with you now, if that makes sense."
Blaine didn't know what to say. Kurt was opening and Blaine was closing, becoming smaller and closer to a nonentity each day. He had nothing to share with Kurt but boring, predictable stories about Mr. Schuester and Brittany and who was the latest couple to get detention for making out in the astronomy room.
But Blaine had to say something. So he did. "Yeah," he said. "That makes sense."
-----
An hour after their Tuesday night Skype call had ended, Blaine's phone buzzed with an incoming email from Kurt. "I told you about the bike. Thought it was time for you to see me on it. I've become more attached to this thing than I was to the Navigator," followed by a private YouTube link.
The video started with Kurt pedaling circles around his loft. The bike was black, like the Navigator, with a finish just as shiny, but with white tires that were going to be a struggle to keep clean in the smog and ash of New York City. (Still, Blaine had no doubt that Kurt would.) It looked retro – and yet there was also something thoroughly modern about it that Blaine couldn't put his finger on. It suited Kurt well, fitting into his ensemble as perfectly as his polished wingtips and his black bowtie.
Blaine's heart skipped when he saw his boyfriend's long legs moving, his neck craning, his weight shifting as the bike turned the corners of the room. Blaine held his fingers to the screen, aching to break through it, to touch Kurt's body, feel the warmth of his muscles, the aliveness of his skin.
It wasn't a particularly sexual feeling (although nothing could be completely divorced from sex with Kurt). He just missed Kurt's touch so much. Blaine was terrible with words – every time he'd ever tried to explain his feelings, he could only come up with a pale approximation of them (I love you would never be enough to explain how he felt). So most of the time, he said nothing at all.
But touch was different. It didn't intimidate Blaine the way that words did. When he was lonely or scared and couldn't explain why, all he had to do was reach for Kurt's hand, and Kurt understood.
Or, that's the way things had been, before 600 miles came between them.
The screen went black, and Kurt was outside – in a different outfit, this time, but one that the bike suited just as well. The camera was jostling a little, looking at Kurt from behind, and then there was Rachel's voice calling out for Kurt to turn around and smile. Kurt did finally turn around when they came to a stop light – oh, Blaine hadn't realized how much he'd missed seeing Kurt twist that way – but he didn't smile. "Are you going to put that thing down and start looking where you're going, Miss Berry?"
"No," Rachel answered, the camera never veering from Kurt's playfully scowling visage. "Not until I get a close-up of your ass to send to Blaine."
Rachel didn't quite manage a close-up, but after the light turned green, she held the camera so that it was mostly pointed at Kurt's ass for the better part of a minute. Kurt stood up on the pedals to give Blaine a better view.
The scene switched. The camera was looking up at Kurt's face now, tall buildings moving backward behind his head. "Hi Blaine," Kurt shouted, without looking down, over the din of wind and horns and whirring motors. "I found a little thing for mounting my phone to my handlebars. It really comes in handy for reading maps. And for recording pointless videos for my boyfriend. Just thought I'd show you a little of my route to my favorite bodega." The buildings stopped moving behind Kurt, and Kurt's hands came over the camera, twisting it until it faced forward to the street. "New York City, the place I call home," Kurt said as the camera pushed forward.
Blaine's throat felt like there was something stuck in it.
Before meeting Kurt, Blaine had never really felt at home anywhere – not with his parents, not with Cooper, not even at Dalton – except for the few months that Kurt was there. When he'd left Dalton for McKinley, and Warbler Thad had asked him why, Blaine had answered without thinking, "I need to go home."
Thad had looked at him confusedly. "How is McKinley home? That's not your old school."
"Kurt's there," was all Blaine said in reply.
-----
There were no bicycles in the Anderson home. Blaine's had been given to Goodwill when he was 10 – he'd outgrown the tiny thing by then – and he'd never seen his parents on one.
Over dinner, Blaine asked, "Can I get a bike?"
"They're dangerous, Blaine," his mother said.
"So is boxing," he said.
"Fists aren't the same as cars," his father said.
Blaine quit while he was ahead. If he kept pressing them, they might actually say no.
If they didn't say no, he couldn't disobey them.
----
Blaine wasn't sure what "fixie" meant. The Fixie Club poster didn't explain it; most of its space was taken up by the clipart silhouette of a racing bicycle, followed by the words "Fixie Your Life" in all-caps Helvetica and, at the very bottom, the hand-scrawled meeting time and location.
Even though he'd already signed up for eight new clubs in the past two weeks, he decided to add another one to his roster. If it had something to do with bicycling, Blaine was in. He couldn't eat the food Kurt was eating or drink New York's magical municipal water with him or wake up beside him to the sound of pigeons cooing on the windowsill; he couldn't kiss Kurt or hold him, share the heat of their bodies inside a cocoon of bedding; he couldn't stand next to Kurt and smell the flowers on the High Line or snark at the antics of Vogue staffers.
But maybe, if he got on a bike, he would understand a little of what Kurt's life was like. And maybe, finally, he'd feel like Kurt wasn't so far away.
On Thursday afternoon, he braved his way to the uncharted territory of McKinley High School's vocational wing to room E3: the metal shop. The acrid smell of propane and brazed steel reminded Blaine of Mr. Hummel's tire shop. It was comforting.
There were six kids already in there, crowded around a couple of bicycle frames hanging from stands. A redhead in a ski cap looked up and smiled. "Hey! It's bow-tie guy!"
It was Stoner Brett.
Blaine smiled back, although he felt like running away. "Blaine." He stepped forward and held out his hand. "Blaine Anderson."
Brett wiped his own hand on the front of his apron, which didn't do much to remove the black grease from his fingers, and shook Blaine's hand. "What up, dog? We'd better get you an apron. Don't want to muss up your sweater vest. That thing is sharp."
"Um, okay." Blaine rubbed his left hand over the back of his hair to make sure none of the curls had started to pop out. "What exactly do you guys do here, anyway?"
"We become one with our bicycles, dude," Brett said, as if the answer should have been obvious.
----
Over the next few meetings, Brett took Blaine under his wing and tried to introduce him to the wonderful world of fixies. He helped Blaine pick out a right-sized bike frame from the pile that Fixie Club members had accumulated over the summer by scouting the curbs on trash day. Brett scrounged through boxes of handlebars and stems and seats and helped Blaine figure out which ones worked the best. As he put them all together, he tried to explain to Blaine what he was doing.
The problem was that Blaine couldn't understand half of what Brett said.
"What makes a fixie different from other bicycles?" Blaine asked as he tightened his front wheel into the – what were they called again? Dropouts? – of the dinged-up silver frame. It had the name Univega emblazoned on it; the name made Blaine think of the constellation Vega, one of the brightest stars in the night sky, and that made Blaine think of Kurt – because bright stars always made him think of Kurt.
Brett, who was measuring a length of chain to run between the pedals and the rear wheel, looked up. "A fixie is like the Force, young Skywalker. The fixie is not outside of you. It is part of you."
Fortunately, there were other kids in the Fixie Club who were a little more lucid.
"'Fixie' is short for 'fixed gear,'" piped up Dan, a tall, skinny white guy with horn-rimmed glasses who wore tight t-shirts with logos from antique 1980s video games and always had the right leg of his jeans rolled up to reveal the bike-chain tattoo circling his calf. "Most bikes have gear-shifters, so if you're going up a hill, you can lower your gear and it gets a little easier to pedal. Or if you're going down a hill, you can raise the gear and you get more power with each pedal stroke, so you go faster. Or if you're feeling lazy, you just stop pedaling and cruise down the hill. But with a fixie, you can't shift gears and you can't stop pedaling, or the bike will stop. The bike moves as fast as your legs move – no faster, no slower."
Brett nodded his head ponderously. "The fixie becomes a reflection of your will, just like the Force. See, young Skywalker?"
Blaine didn't see, exactly, but he nodded as if he did.
----
It took a lot less time than Blaine would have expected to throw a bicycle together from parts. Brett said this was because fixies are the "epitome of simplicity"; Dan said it was because there were no brakes or derailleurs or cogsets or cables to worry about.
Blaine had no idea what a derailleur or a cogset were so, for once, Brett's explanation made more sense to Blaine than Dan's did.
They took Blaine out to the parking lot to teach him to ride. Dan dangled a helmet out at him. Blaine crinkled his nose. "How many people have worn that before me?"
"It's not me telling you to wear the helmet," said Dan, scratching his soul patch. "It's the school. Liability. If any of us get caught without one on, they shut down the club."
Blaine sighed and put it on.
"Anyway, I'm pretty sure any germs that live in this helmet couldn't crawl through the barrier of shellac you put on your hair."
Blaine didn't laugh. But he didn't cringe, either. He thought that maybe, after a few more meetings, he might be ready to crack a joke about Dan's obsession with Atari.
Blaine leaned his Univega against his hip as Brett mounted his own bike – the frame and wheels were spray-painted a rusty orange that matched Brett's hair ("To remind me that I and the bike are the same," Brett had explained the first time he'd shown it to Blaine) – and pedaled easily around the near-empty lot, occasionally circling a lone SUV or beaten-up coupe. His legs moved constantly – sometimes fast, sometimes slow – the bike matching whatever pace he set. When he stopped moving, so did the bike – but Brett didn't step down from it. He lifted his ass off of the seat and stood up on the pedals, the muscles in his legs and arms and torso vibrating like fine strings as he balanced himself and the bike, never letting it tip too far to the right or the left. The bike remained so upright, it seemed to levitate.
Blaine had never seen anything like it.
"Why isn't the bike falling over?" Blaine said.
"Do you fall over when you stand still?" Brett said, still standing on his pedals.
"Um, no?" Blaine said.
"Then why should I fall over when I stand still?"
"Because you're on a bike. And a bike is – it doesn't have feet."
Blaine heard Dan snort from behind him.
Brett shook his head in disappointment. "The Force, young Skywalker. Use the Force. It binds all things together."
Blaine shook his head. "I thought the fixie was the Force."
Brett hopped the bike forward a few inches, then stood it still again. "The Force is in everything. It connects us all. The fixie just helps us to feel it."
Blaine had the urge to pick up his bike and throw it at Brett, but he didn't. Instead, with Dan's prodding, he rolled up his right pant leg and got on his Univega – not quite sure if he was ready to learn to ride again, but willing to give it a shot.
-----
Dan gave Blaine the practical coaching through his first spin on the fixie; Brett did wheelies around the parking lot and occasionally offered up a platitude about the Force. "Whatever you do," Dan said as they pushed off on their bikes, "don't stop pedaling unless you're ready to stop moving."
Blaine's maiden voyage around the parking lot was less than auspicious. Three times, he stopped pedaling without meaning to, causing the bike to stop suddenly, tip over, and crash Blaine to the ground.
Lucky for Blaine, boxing had given him a lot of practice falling down.
By their sixth circle around the lot, Blaine felt like he might, possibly, get the hang of this one day. He loosened his grip on the handlebars just enough so that his knuckles were no longer so white.
By the tenth time around, he was confident enough to speak and pedal at the same time. "That thing that Brett keeps doing –"
"Standing still on his bike?" Dan said.
"Yeah. Is that – can you do that?"
"Everyone who rides a fixie learns to do that sooner or later," Dan said. "It's called a track stand. I'll teach it to you once you've learned how to stop this thing."
Blaine lost count of how many times he fell down that afternoon. Brett helped him up from the last fall. "As long as you keep telling yourself you and the bike are separate, you'll keep falling down. Feel the connection, young Skywalker."
-----
Blaine told Kurt about learning to ride again.
"Oh my god, Blaine, that's awesome! Tell me more!"
It made Blaine's heart feel warm. He hadn't seen Kurt get this excited about something not related to New York in weeks. He felt his own smile reaching all the way to his ears.
So Blaine told him. He told Kurt about learning to balance again.
In New York, Kurt bounced excitedly on his bed, making the laptop camera bounce a little with him. Blaine had to close his eyes to keep from getting dizzy. "Oh my god!" Kurt practically squealed, in a way that only Kurt could – husky and adorable, like the excitement was pushing against his throat and he just couldn't keep it in. "I know exactly what you're talking about! It was probably a little different with my bike because mine's the kind I grew up with, but still – I was so scared the first time I took it out on the street!"
Blaine chuckled. "Kurt, I've seen you balance on a tight rope."
"But it's different with a hunk of metal between your legs!" Kurt effused, then bit his lip. "Did that sound racy? That sounded kind of racy, didn't it? Oh my god, speaking of racy, did I tell you …" and, as he tended to do when he got excited, Kurt got distracted. The conversation turned into a story about some fashion shoot for Vogue.com and a phallic piece of jewelry and a mishap that occurred with the model's top and … Blaine kind of lost track after that.
Another night, Blaine told Kurt about his chipped silver Univega frame and how, in the winter when it started snowing, he might bring it back into the metal shop and paint it in gray pinstripes – unless Kurt thought that checkers would be better?
Kurt never answered the question. Instead, he latched onto the word "paint" and started rehashing a disagreement he'd had with Rachel about the color scheme for their loft.
The next week, Blaine told Kurt about biking to school and arguing with Brett over whether they should stop at stop signs, and Kurt launched into a diatribe about bike messengers and New York hipsters that Blaine could just barely follow.
Blaine tried to remind himself that he loved to hear Kurt talk. He'd always loved to hear Kurt talk. He hadn't been exaggerating when he'd told Kurt he was the most interesting kid in Ohio, and he wouldn't be exaggerating if he said, now, that Kurt was the most interesting man in New York.
(Anderson Cooper and Marc Jacobs and maybe even Robert DeNiro were pretty interesting, but they still couldn't hold a candle to Kurt.)
So Blaine couldn't understand why his mind started wandering when Kurt would talk. He was doing the same thing that he did last spring with Kurt, but he didn't know how to stop it or even if he wanted to – pulling away, shutting down, because every conversation they had turned back to Kurt and New York and how Kurt is in love with New York and how at home Kurt feels in New York .
How could Kurt feel at home in a place so far away from Blaine, when all of Ohio has become an alien country to Blaine now that Kurt was gone?
With every phone call and every Skype, Kurt repeated that he loved Blaine. He talked about the things they would do when Blaine moved to New York, daydreamed about the apartment they would rent and then the home that they would buy, and would Blaine prefer a high-rise condo in Manhattan or a brownstone in Brooklyn? – because Kurt could really see the benefits of both.
These were all signs of love, right? So why couldn't Blaine feel it?
"You're feelings deceive you, young Skywalker," Brett had said earlier that day when Blaine told him, after the second time he'd been thrown off his bike, that he certainly didn't feel like he was one with it.
Brett responded with a disappointed shake of his head. "You feel according to what you believe the world to be. Believe differently, understand the truth of the Force, and the feeling of oneness will follow."
-----
Blaine and Brett weren't exactly friends. Blaine wasn't even sure what "friend" meant, but he thought that mutual liking was supposed to be in there somewhere. He wanted Brett to like him – he wanted everyone to like him – and thought that maybe Brett did. But he hadn't decided if he actually liked Brett yet.
He'd started stowing his bicycle at Brett's house. He'd drive there every morning (as far as his parents knew, Blaine was still driving all the way to school, and he figured they didn't really need to know the difference) and pull his Univega out of Brett's garage, practicing (and failing at) track stands in the driveway until Brett ambled out his front door. Brett was never stoned in the morning, but he was almost always late. Not late enough to make Blaine miss the beginning of first period, but late enough that he didn't always have time to get his hair back to looking how it should after he parked his bike.
They took back streets most of the way to school so that they would encounter as few cars as possible. It was a nice feeling, to be on those deserted residential streets and feel like they owned them. It was, however, very different from what Kurt experienced, biking in New York.
They were running later than usual this morning. Blaine had worked (hopelessly) on track stands for a full ten minutes before throwing his fixie down on the ground and stomping up Brett's porch steps to pound on the door.
"Brett," Blaine said cautiously as they slowed for a red light, "I know you probably view time differently than I do, but could you maybe be ready when you say you're going to be ready?" Blaine was getting better at paying attention to his legs and the bike, at understanding when to pedal harder and when to pedal slower, when to shift his weight a little more to the right or left. But it still didn't feel natural or effortless. He and his fixie were not one.
"I usually am," Brett said.
"Well, usually I wait in the driveway for a while before you come out."
Brett nosed his bike into the intersection, looked to the left and right, and signaled the all-clear to Blaine. "Yeah," he said when Blaine caught up with him across the way. "That's because I like to watch you practice."
"Wait," Blaine said. "You're telling me you're ready to go when I get to your house, but you stay inside and look out the window and watch me while I'm waiting for you?"
"Yup."
"Why?"
"Because I want to witness the moment when you and the bike become one."
Blaine shook his head – a little too vigorously, as it caused the handlebars to swerve. Blaine breathed deep and straightened his course. "You know that's not gonna happen, right? I'm not becoming one with a hunk of metal."
Brett sighed loudly. "A bike is more than metal. It's spirit, too. Dude, I thought with your people's beliefs and all, you'd be a little quicker on the uptake about that."
"My people's beliefs?"
"Yeah, you know. Like, we're all children of the Great Spirit, whether we're rocks or people or iron ore or trees or chipmunks. We're all connected. Isn't that what Native Americans believe?"
Blaine froze – which meant his legs froze, and the bike froze, too, its wheels ceasing to turn and bringing it to a quick halt before unceremoniously catapulting Blaine over its handlebars.
Fortunately, Blaine's experience dancing on furniture meant he could manage a somersault with no preamble. He rolled over a few times before planting his feet down on the street.
"Whoa, dude, you okay?" Brett hopped off his bike, dropping it next to Blaine's.
Blaine brushed off the arms of his tweed jacket. The fabric had picked up a few small specks of dirt and gravel, but he didn't see any rips. Brett reached out a hand. Blaine didn't take it. He pushed himself off the ground and walked back toward his bike. "My people are WASPs, who are by definition Protestant, and Filipinos, 84 percent of whom are Catholic. I'm pretty sure neither of those believe that rocks are children of the Great Spirit."
"Oh," said Brett, looking down at his feet dejectedly.
Blaine picked up his bike. "Also, if I was Native American, I'm pretty sure I'd be offended at the way you just tried to pigeonhole my beliefs."
Brett squatted down to grab his own bike off the ground. "I didn't mean any offense, man. I like Native Americans. And you don't look white, exactly, or black or Asian, and I saw this movie with Native Americans in it and one of them kind of looked like you so –"
Blaine glared at him.
"I'm digging myself into a bigger hole, huh?"
Blaine jumped on his bike and pushed off. "Honest to god, I think you make more sense when you're high."
Brett pedaled next to Blaine, silent. Blaine had the urge to peel off at the next corner and find a different route to school, but he didn't.
"You're right," Brett said after a few minutes of silence. "I probably do make more sense when I'm high. Everything makes more sense when I'm high. That's why I'm Stoner Brett."
Blaine wanted to stay mad at Brett. Instead, he felt his heart sink in sympathy. "Everything makes more sense when I'm drunk," he said, immediately wondering why he'd allowed the words to escape his mouth, even if they were true.
"I just –" Brett continued. "When I'm stoned, I see the Force, like, everywhere. I see how you and me are connected, even though you're smart and straight-laced and wear those weird bow-ties, and I'm, like, this ignoramus stoner kid who can't keep his shit together except when he's on his bike."
"You really believe this Force stuff, don't you?" Blaine said. "Even when you're not high?"
"It's not so much a matter of believing. It's just – when I'm not aware of the force, everything feels far apart and disconnected and life is just harder. Riding my bike is harder, listening to people is harder – blinking is harder. But when I remember the Force is there – things click. It's like, you know, physics is a lot easier to do when you just accept that gravity is real. My life is just easier when I accept that the Force is real."
Blaine nodded. It would be nice to have belief like that. He wondered if he ever would.
----
Three weeks into riding his fixie, Blaine did his first real, non-wobbly, 30-second track stand. He and Brett were at a red light, and Blaine didn't feel like putting his foot on the ground. So he didn't. He just stood there on his pedals, hands loosely wrapped around the handlebar grips, and breathed. He didn't pay attention to his legs or the way his stomach muscles clenched as they moved his torso a little to the left, a little forward, always keeping himself and the bike in balance. He just looked ahead at the red light and felt the wheels underneath him grip the pavement, refusing to let go.
The light turned green and Blaine pedaled forward. His legs moved, and so did the bike.
Brett let out an ear-shattering whoop. The neighborhood dogs barked out a response. "Young Skywalker, you and the Univega have become one!" He sped up, turning back around to ride a figure eight around Blaine. "You are a Jedi knight!"
Blaine felt almost as giddy as he did when he was drinking, as he did when he kissed Kurt and the rest of the world disappeared.
"What were you thinking as you waited for the light to change, young Jedi?"
Blaine laughed. "I wasn't thinking anything."
"A-ha!" Brett shouted, and the chorus of barking began anew. "This is the key, young Jedi. Stop thinking. Your thoughts deceive you. They tell you that you are separate from the bike. You believe you are separate from the bike, and you fall down!" He shouted the last two words, and there was more barking. Blaine wondered if the neighbors would bar him and Brett from ever biking down their street again. He didn't really care. This moment was worth it.
"Young Jedi, you have felt the Force. May the Force always be with you."
----
That night on the phone, Blaine didn't tell Kurt about his track stand. He didn't know how to explain it.
Anyway, it had been exhilarating in the moment, but now he felt a sense of loss. He wanted to feel it again, that strange ineffable sense of simply being, that he'd lost when he got off the bike at school and locked it in the rack.
He wanted to feel it now, with Kurt, the way he'd felt it a thousand times before with him – but hadn't felt once since Kurt had moved to New York.
"Where are you?" Blaine said after they exchanged their initial greetings.
"At home," Kurt said.
Home. There was that word again. Blaine was beginning to resent it. He cleared his throat. "Is Rachel there?"
"No. I think she's out gallivanting with Brody."
Blaine paused. "I was wondering if you would do something."
"What's that?" Kurt said. Blaine could hear something that sounded like a refrigerator opening and closing in the background.
"I was wondering if you could maybe go to your bed and lie down and put your hand out next to you, face down. And I'll lie here in my bed with my hand face up. And we could – I know this is weird, but I really miss being connected to you, and I thought – maybe we could hold hands?"
"Blaine." It was barely a whisper, but it was loud enough for Blaine to catch in it that tone of sweetness – of protectiveness – that Kurt reserved for him only. "Of course I can do that."
They were quiet for a minute as Kurt put away whatever he'd just gotten out of the refrigerator and walked over to his bed.
"I'm here now," Kurt said. "My hand is yours. What next?"
Blaine flexed his fingers, tried to wrap them around where Kurt's would be, tried to feel Kurt's palm against his. All he felt was air. "I don't know. I guess we can just … talk."
"Okay," Kurt said. So talk they did. The conversation wasn't much different from the usual – Blaine updated Kurt on Glee Club shenanigans and Kurt told him about New York. Blaine still felt a pang in his heart every time Kurt mentioned Vogue or Isabelle Wright or running errands with Rachel. He tried holding Kurt's hand tighter, to signal Kurt that he needed his reassurance, but Kurt must not have felt it on the other end of the phone line, because he kept talking happily about things that broke Blaine's heart.
There was a moment, though, toward the end of the conversation, when Blaine felt it. Kurt had asked him how the presidential debate went, and Blaine told him about standing up for hair gel and books and human rights.
"I'm proud of you, Blaine."
In that moment, Blaine forgot that Kurt was far away in New York, creating a new life without him. He forgot that he was alone in his bedroom, lonely and disconnected from the world.
He felt Kurt's palm warm against his, Kurt's long fingers wrapped firmly around the back of his hand.
He felt it as clearly as he felt the pillow against the back of his head or the phone against his ear.
He felt it, for that moment. His breath caught in his throat, and he thought he might cry. He turned his head to kiss Kurt.
But no one was there.
The solid weight of Kurt's hand in his evaporated and died.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-07 02:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-07 03:33 pm (UTC)