Fic: A Ton of Twitterpation

[wowbright]

Pairings: Kurt/Adam (sorta kinda maybe dating),Kurt/Blaine (bros helping bros)
Reaction to: 4.14, "I Do"
Word Count: 1,663
Summary: Kurt has coffee with Adam the day after he gets back from Lima. Kurt notices that the barista has a crush on Adam, and Adam notices … well, you'll see.
Alternate summary: Kurt hits Adam with the DUH stick, and then Adam hits him back.
Author’s Notes: Thanks to Excedrin Migraine for making this story possible, and to 

punkkitten2113  for giving in to my caffeinated pleas for a beta.

 

---

Kurt's surprised how happy he is to see Adam's face when he walks into the Human Bean Coffee Shop the morning after returning from Lima.

He's surprised because he's been wondering about this moment – wondering if this was when it might finally hit him: an ounce of shame, a pound of guilt and a ton of regret over the events of the weekend.

But Kurt's heart feels as light and carefree as it has since he first set eyes on Blaine the day before the wedding, when they met up to rehearse their bit for the reception. It feels like it's grown wings, and that at any moment it's going to spread them and flutter out of his chest.

"Well, well, it seems Ohio's treated you kindly," Adam says, rising from his seat at the two-person table he's staked out for them and kissing Kurt chastely on the cheek.

Kurt smacks the heels of his shoes together three times and chants in a sing-songy voice, "There's no place like home."

Adam lowers himself back down in his chair and gestures across the table. "I hope you don't mind I already got you your latte."

Kurt feels a blush start to creep across his cheeks. Okay, maybe now he's starting to feel the slightest bit guilty. "You shouldn't have. I can pay you back." He pulls his own chair away from the table and drapes his coat over the back before sitting down.

Adam waves Kurt's words away. "No, no. I didn't pay for it. The barista accidentally made my espresso decaf on Thursday, and every day since she's been shoving free drinks at me to make it up to me." He nods his head over toward the red-haired Israeli girl behind the counter.

Kurt breathes a sigh of relief. "Her? I don't think that's the only reason she's giving you free drinks."

Adam raises an eyebrow in surprise. "No?"

Kurt leans across the table conspiratorially. "'That butt you got makes her so horny.'"

Adam snorts. "Does it?"

Kurt nods and takes a sip of his free latte. "Every time you walk out the door, her eyes are glued to it. I'm pretty sure I've heard her muttering, 'Baby got back,' under her breath a few times, too."

"Well, enough about my arse. Tell me about your weekend. How's your family?"

Kurt shrugs. "Well, my dad's still in D.C. because of the sequester –"

"Oh, right, of course. But your stepmum?"

Kurt straightens up in his chair and tilts his head a bit back so he can look down his nose at Adam as he answers. "Me stepmum is smashing, old chap."

Adam grins. "Come now, I don't talk like that."

"You know I only tease you because the way you talk is adorable, right?"

"Right-oh. That's why I moved to the States. All I have to do is open my mouth and you blokes instantly think I'm charming."

"You're right. It has absolutely nothing to do with your personality."

"Now, now." Adam winks and takes a long gulp of his coffee. "So your stepmum is 'smashing,' and your brother, or your stepbrother, is –?"

Kurt shrugs. "I hardly saw him, actually. He was off doing his best man thing most of the time, which got complicated, because the wedding didn't actually happen."

"It what?"

Kurt tells Adam the story, or at least as much of it as he understands – which, frankly, isn't much. The last rumor he heard was that Ms. Pillsbury had run off with Coach Bieste to a women's commune in Wisconsin, although he highly doubts that's true. He has a hard time imagining her putting up with the germs of group living.

Toward the end of the story, the Israeli girl materializes from nowhere and plops two slices of chocolate torte in front of Adam, mumbling on the house before whisking herself away.

Kurt grabs one without waiting for Adam to offer it. "You need to start wearing tighter pants," he says, stabbing a fork through the layers. "I want to see what she'll do for you then."

Adam blushes. "I'm a bit afraid to find out." He pulls the other slice toward himself and contemplates it. "Is it wrong of me to eat this if I have no intentions towards her?"

Kurt shakes his head vigorously. "No. She's giving of her own free will."

"Alright. But if she keeps this up, I might start getting scared to come back." He takes a bite of the torte and lets out an involuntary moan. Kurt observes that it's quite sexy before realizing that the sexiness of it has left him completely unaffected. Adam looks up. "So what did you do all weekend then, without the wedding?"

Kurt wills himself not to blush. "Well, Mr. Schuester said to go ahead with the reception since it was all paid for anyway, so we did that." He slips another bite of torte into his mouth.

"And Blaine? Did you get to see him?"

Kurt almost forgets to swallow. He has to think about it for a moment – esophagus or windpipe, esophagus or windpipe? Fortunately, he chooses the former. He swallows slowly, takes a long-drawn out sip of latte, breathes deeply to relax his throat and says, "Uh-huh."

Except it's not uh-huh the way that Kurt intends to say it, casual and self-assured like Cool Hand Luke. It comes out like the squeak of helium, at least an octave higher than Kurt's regular speaking voice. He would not be surprised if, in fact, he surpassed a high G.

Adam smirks. "Was he 'smashing'?"

Kurt stabs his fork into the torte and separates off a chunk about the size of his mouth. He shovels it defiantly into his face.

Adam reaches across the table and gently pries the fork form Kurt's hand, laying it down next to the bare scrap of torte that's left on Kurt's plate. "Come now, Kurt. If you don't want to talk about it, you can just say so. You needn't commit suicide by chocolate. I would hate to see your star burn out so prematurely."

Kurt rolls his eyes. He wants to say that his mouth can handle bigger things than a piece of torte, thank you, but he's left no room for his tongue to articulate words. And given the topic of conversation, it's probably better that he keep sexual innuendo out of it, anyway. So he just chews and looks at Adam expectantly.

"You just seemed a bit twitterpated over seeing him before you left," Adam says. "I was hoping things had gone well in that department, if you wanted them to."

Kurt swallows a chunk of torte and covers his mouth to talk around the unswallowed remains. "I was not twitterpated."

"Right, you were just texting him three times an hour and –"

"I text Rachel three times an hour."

"Yes, but you don't blush while you're doing it."

Of course, Kurt's face chooses to betray him at this moment by flushing beet red.

"Oh, you're bewitching when you blush."

Kurt swallows the remainder of his torte. "Are you flirting with me?"

Adam cocks his head to the side. "I suppose you could say I am."

"While teasing me over this alleged ex-boyfriend twitterpation?"

Adam cocks his head to the other side. "Well, yes. It's hard not to get a little flirty when you're being so precious about it."

Kurt picks up his fork, moves the crumbs of torte around his plate, puts the fork back down. "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say."

"Whatever you want, or don't want. I get a bit of second-hand joy when my friends get lucky in love, that's all. But it's none of my business if you don't want it to be."

Kurt looks at Adam cautiously. "Is that what we are? Friends?" He can't tell if Adam looks more pleased or hurt by the question.

"I would hope so," Adam finally says. "I'll admit that I hoped for a little more at first, but it became clear pretty quickly that you were somewhere else."

Kurt shakes his head. "No, I wasn't. I asked you out, remember?"

Adam smiles sweetly. "I remember. But I'd already noticed by then."

"Noticed what?"

Adam shifts in his seat, crosses his legs. "Have you ever noticed that when you talk about Blaine, you almost always call him 'my ex-boyfriend'?"

Kurt shrugs. "Well, he is. My ex-boyfriend."

Adam nods. "Yes. But if you'd already moved on to the stage where you were real friends and only friends, that's not what you would call him. You'd call him 'Blaine.' It always struck me as a little proprietary when you called him 'my ex-boyfriend.' Still does, really."

Kurt's face no longer feels overwarm. All the blood has drained out of it and into – nowhere. He's not sure where it's gone. "Oh, god," he says, but the words are drained, too – weak and quiet and … shocked.

"Now, now. I thought you were an atheist," Adam chides.

Kurt doesn't laugh. He doesn't move. He doesn't blink. His eyes are fixed across the table at Adam, and he can't stop staring, because he can't … do anything at all.

Adam's face melts into concern. "Oh, Kurt." He reaches across the table and squeezes Kurt's hand. "You didn't know?"

Kurt shakes his head with a glacial kind of slowness. "Not … completely." He mouths the words, but barely any sound comes out.

Adam scoots out of his chair and circles the table, kneeling next to Kurt and petting the back of his head. Kurt would ordinarily slap someone for touching his hair, but just now, it's the exact-right thing. It's reminds him of how he and his mother used to be when she'd read bedtime stories to him, or lay next to him in bed while he sweated out a fever or shook out the chills. Soothing, and safe.

"You've never let go of him, dear," Adam says. "Frankly, I'm not convinced you should."

 

 

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