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Fic: Falling Is Like This - Chapter 2: On Tuesday, You Made Me Warm
Fic: Falling is Like This [2/5]
Chapter title: On Tuesday, You Made Me Warm
Characters: Kurt/Blaine pre-dating, Rachel, Blaine's roommate (OC)
Rating: PG-13 (entire story)
Spoilers: 2.14 (Blame It On the Alcohol). Incorporates some things we've learned about the characters from canon after 2.14, but no plot spoilers. Spoilers for the movie Love Story in chapter 3 and references to Brokeback Mountain in Chapter 4.
Warnings for this and future chapters: language
Word count: About 17,000 overall, 2,859 this part
Summary: The fact the he enjoyed kissing Rachel at the party is confusing for Blaine. But what's more confusing is Kurt.
Chapter Summary: Blaine is tired of being perfect.
Author’s Note: My attempt at figuring out what was going on in the boys' heads during 'Blame It on the Alcohol' and why that fight in the Lima Bean didn't end their friendship. This story is finished. I'll be posting one chapter a day until all chapters are up (finishes on Friday in U.S.). More complete author's notes will be posted as a separate entry at the end of the week.
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Chapter 2: On Tuesday, You Made Me Warm
It's after 2 a.m. and Blaine is finally almost done with his essay on the Mexican-American War. He just has to clean up his citations a bit. Which is a little hard to do almost four hours past his regular bedtime, but there's really no choice, since he cried and slept his afternoon away instead of doing homework.
His phone flashes and he flips it open. He reads the message (From Kurt: Sorry I am such a dick.), and he would laugh from relief if Justin weren't snoring peacefully in the other bed.
He chews his lip as he thinks about what to say because, yeah, Kurt was a dick. But since talking to Justin, Blaine's been trying to reconstruct the argument in his head – which is actually pretty difficult, because Blaine kind of turned his brain off somewhere in the middle of it – and did he really compare Kurt to Karofsky? Wow. If that's not a dick move, Blaine doesn't know what is.
So he stares and stares at Sorry I'm such a dick and tries to weigh Kurt's bigotry against his own stupidity to see which one is worse, but the scale in his head won't tip either way.
His thumb starts to move over the buttons of his phone.
To Kurt: No. You *were* a dick. Not expecting you to make habit out of it.
From Kurt: You're sweet.
To Kurt: Anyway, I'm no saint, either.
From Kurt: Don't turn this around. I'm trying to apologize.
To Kurt: I'm allowed to apologize, too.
From Kurt: No. *I* am an asshole and *you* really are too kind.
To Kurt: No. I think those might be exactly the wrong words to describe me right now.
From Kurt: Not sure what to say to that.
To Kurt: I'm sorry I'm so confused right now.
From Kurt: I know.
To Kurt: I think it's going to be a really hard week.
From Kurt: Probably.
To Kurt: I wish I was as good as you are at figuring personal stuff out.
From Kurt: That's the impression I try to give. Not sure it's true.
To Kurt: I really don't understand myself sometimes.
From Kurt: I know.
To Kurt: I'm really glad you texted me.
From Kurt: Me too. But I thought you'd be asleep.
To Kurt: Yeah. I should probably go to bed and finish my report in the morning.
From Kurt: Good night?
To Kurt: Good night, Kurt.
From Kurt: Good night, Blaine Warbler.
------------------
Warbler rehearsal goes surprisingly well, given how exhausted Blaine looks. Blaine sits down in his usual place next to Kurt for the first part of the meeting, and even though they don’t really say anything but breathy and slightly embarrassed "hey"s to each other, Kurt feels reassured. Wes announces after warm-ups that they'll start working on "Misery," to which Blaine says, "If you don't mind that I'm going to totally suck. I got, like, three hours of sleep last night."
"Well, there's 15 other people here who need to learn the song, Blaine, so I really don't care," says Wes.
Kurt can see the tops of Blaine's ears flush pink, and is a little flustered by how positively delighted that makes him feel.
Blaine does fine, anyway. He's not somersaulting on the couches or tap-dancing on the tables or dancing flirtingly around the other Warblers. He's just standing there, in one spot, sounding beautifully, appropriately miserable at all the right parts. Kurt never thought a Maroon 5 song could make him feel so – well, make him feel anything.
It's confusing and a little breathtaking to see Blaine this way. He's always been so confident and sure of himself – dangerously so, if Kurt's honest about it. It led to Blaine almost getting the crap beaten out of him by Karofsky that day in the stairwell and it led to Blaine convincing the entirety of the Warblers that it was a great idea to help him sexually harass a Gap employee.
Now that Kurt thinks about it, he realizes that Blaine's self-assurance has been slowly dissipating since that episode at the Gap. Blaine hasn't given Kurt much unsolicited advice lately about the order in which he should do his homework (history first because Dr. Fairfax will never accept a late assignment) or the best spot to sit in the library (back to the south window so he can get the advantage of diffuse sunlight but not be distracted by the birds flitting about the dogwood branches below) or the best shortcuts from any point on campus to any other point (too many to summarize).
When they study together now, Kurt sometimes catches Blaine looking at him, eyebrows scrunched together and lips slightly parted, as if Blaine has gotten stuck on a particularly difficult geometry proof or can't remember the present subjunctive form of asseoir. "Do you need help?" Kurt will say, and Blaine will look a little startled and shake his head or mumble, "No," before turning back to his books.
And then, last week in Blaine's dorm room, Blaine looked up from his email and said, frowning, "Kurt, I need your advice."
Kurt was pretty sure he had never heard Blaine speak those words to anyone, not even a teacher.
"Yes?" Kurt said, taking a sip of coffee to quell his shock.
"My dad found a '58 Corvette Roadster and he says he'll buy it if I want to restore it with him this summer."
Kurt coughed so hard that some of the coffee ran out his nose.
"You okay?" said Blaine, bringing a box of Kleenex over to Kurt. He sat down next to Kurt on the bed and tentatively patted his back.
Kurt wiped his nose and coughed a few more times for good measure. "Yeah, I'm fine," he said. "Just – that's a really nice car. Maybe even better than the Bel Air you guys worked on before."
"I know," sighed Blaine, drawing his hand slowly down Kurt's back before pulling it back into his own lap. He stared at the floor.
Kurt tried to ignore the tingling in his spine. "But?"
"I'm not really all that into cars. Being able to drive them is good. But if mine breaks down, well – " Blaine looked up at Kurt and forced a smile. "Maybe I can just have you fix it for me?"
The skin around Blaine's eyes and jaw twitched almost imperceptibly, and it made Kurt's stomach flip. "What do you want to do, Blaine?"
"I don't want to pretend to my dad anymore. I'm tired of always being what people expect of me, Kurt."
Kurt took a breath. "I, for one, just expect you to be Blaine. And your father needs to learn that that's all he can expect of you, too. You're pretty perfect just the way you are, anyway."
Blaine's smile wasn't forced this time, but it was small, the corners of his mouth just slightly upturned. There was something shy and almost sad about it. "Thanks, Kurt," he said, resting his hand on Kurt's knee for just a second as he stood up. Kurt wished Blaine would have just stayed there and told him what else was wrong.
Desperate and confused. Yes, these seem to be the right lyrics to describe Blaine Anderson these days. It must be why he sounds so good singing this song.
I am in misery.
There ain't nobody who can comfort me.
Why won't you answer me?
The silence is slowly killing me.
Kurt wonders if the fact that he really, really wants to comfort Blaine right now makes him a bit of an angst whore.
After the Warblers have run through the song a few times, Wes tells the section he's been leading that they've got it now, and he walks away from them to listen more closely to Blaine. "Put some more vim into it, Warbler Blaine!" he chirps. It confirms Kurt's suspicion that the Warbler Council could hear angels sing and the only thing they'd have to say about it was that it wasn't peppy enough.
Blaine rolls his eyes at Wes and mouths "three hours of sleep" instead of singing one of the oh yeahs. Kurt thinks it's the closest Blaine has ever come to talking back to someone on the Council, and he rather likes it.
When rehearsal ends, Kurt bends over to grab his messenger bag. He feels a hand on his shoulder and he knows he shouldn't expect Blaine to be ready to speak to him yet, but he hopes it's him, anyway.
"Hey," Kurt exhales as he stands up and catches Blaine's eyes, which are tired and so, so lost.
"Are you going home?" Blaine asks weakly.
"Yeah," Kurt answers. "I told Dad and Carole that I'd make dinner tonight."
"Oh," says Blaine, his eyes darting downward, and Kurt wants to wrap his arms around Blaine and let him bury his face in Kurt's chest. Kurt wants to promise to never, never hurt Blaine again, to always be his refuge.
Instead, Kurt says, "I can walk you to the library, if that's where you're headed."
Blaine smiles, and it's a real smile, bigger than the ones Blaine wore even when he was drunk. And, yes – Kurt is so relieved to see it.
------------------
Not that I didn't care, it's that I didn't know.
It's not what I didn't feel, it's what I didn't show.
Blaine gives Kurt his arm as they step out into the dull, gray February light. The wind is fast and bitter, and Blaine can feel Kurt huddle in a little closer to his side.
"I should probably start out with 'How was your day?', but I think from rehearsal I already know the answer," Kurt says.
"Was I that bad?" says Blaine.
"No. You were that raw," says Kurt. "I thought Wes was out of line. 'Vim' is inappropriate for a song about heartbreak."
"'Vim' is appropriate for every song the Warblers do," says Blaine, kicking the toe of his shoe into a spot of frozen mud as they step onto the quad.
"Respect the wingtips," Kurt says. "Do you know how much Florsheims cost?" For some reason, the admonishment doesn't annoy Blaine – it makes his whole chest feel warm.
They say nothing for a moment, just walking forward with their arms linked, watching the bare trees draw silhouettes against the sky. This is nice, Blaine thinks. Maybe we can just forget yesterday happened.
But then Kurt slows to a stop and he removes his hand from Blaine's arm. Blaine shivers. Kurt's eyes are watering – maybe it's from the wind – and his nostrils tremble with each breath. Kurt looks down at the ground and shoves his hands into his pockets.
"Kurt?"
Kurt raises his eyes to Blaine's, and Blaine's brain trips back into that moment Saturday night when the beauty of Kurt's eyes struck him like a revelation.
"Blaine, I was horrible to you yesterday." Kurt's voice is shaking and it makes Blaine's whole body ache. "I was scared and I freaked out and I turned on my eviscerator. I should never do that to you. I never want to do that to you again."
"Maybe," Blaine says. He hates seeing Kurt in pain. He would do anything to make it it stop. "But I kind of saw it coming, and I didn't do anything to keep it from happening."
"That's not your job."
"I know. I know it isn't. What I mean is, what I mean is that – I haven't been real with you, and I think that kind of set us up for a train wreck. "
Kurt's eyebrows scrunch up in confusion. "What do you mean, 'not real'? Sometimes I think you're honest to a fault." He shoves his hands deeper into the pockets of his overcoat. "Well, not to a fault, exactly. Just, you've been honest with me even when it's not the easiest thing for me to hear." Blaine wonders if Kurt's talking about the When Harry Met Sally discussion or about Blaine's description of Rachel's kissing, but now isn't the time to ask.
Blaine shakes his head. "It's not the stuff I say, Kurt. It's –." He's not sure how to explain it, but Kurt is looking at him patiently, just waiting – not blinking, but not staring, either – and that's helping Blaine to find the words. It's the way that Blaine wanted Kurt to look at him yesterday at the Lima Bean.
"Kurt, ever since I figured out I was gay I've needed everyone to think I'm perfect, that I'm in control, that I know everything, that I'm someone to look up to and I'm charming and flawless and irreproachable. I need them to think those things so they can't hate me, even if they want to."
Kurt keeps his eyes on Blaine's, and God – with all their sympathy and tenderness, they make Blaine feel so strong. "Oh, honey," Kurt sighs.
Blaine grabs Kurt's wrists and tugs them gently until Kurt's hands are free of his pockets. Blaine wraps them in his own. Maybe it's too much – he doesn't know – but he needs to touch Kurt, he needs Kurt's hands to ground him. Even if they're just friends and that's all they'll ever be.
Blaine feels Kurt's thumbs rubbing the back of his fingers and he thinks maybe Kurt needed it too. The thought makes his knees weak, but somehow he keeps standing.
"Kurt, what I need from you –" Blaine swallows hard. He looks down at Kurt's long fingers wrapped in his, and the sight steadies him. "I thought I needed you to think I was perfect, too. So I set myself up to be your role model, Kurt. And I just can't do it anymore. I need you to see who I really am. I'm a kid, and I make mistakes. Sometimes I make really big mistakes and hurt people I really care about."
"And sometimes you're really wonderful," says Kurt, his voice on the edge of breaking.
Blaine looks up at Kurt, those perfect, patient, cerulean eyes, and breathes deeply. "Kurt, I screwed up royally this weekend. So just please, please know that I'm sorry that I hurt you and please – I would feel so much better if I knew that you don't need to look up to me. I just need you – I just need you next to me. Okay?"
"Oh, honey" – there it is again, and Blaine's heart skips a beat even as he tells himself that Kurt calls Mercedes that all the time and anyway Blaine doesn't really want it to mean anything more than that when he's not drunk, right? – "I kind of had my suspicions that you were human."
Oh, shit. Kurt is crying. And Blaine thinks he should probably feel really bad about that because the last thing Kurt would want is to have tears streaking down his face in a bitter, 16-mile-an-hour-wind and he is going to have to use so much moisturizer to make up for that; but Kurt is smiling and all Blaine can feel is warmth and joy.
Kurt pulls Blaine's head to his shoulder, wraps his arms around Blaine's back, and Blaine feels so safe. He wishes he could hear Kurt's heart beat through that heavy wool coat. Instead, he hears Kurt whisper, "And yes, I'll stand by your side as long as you let me."
They stay like that for a while as Kurt sniffling slows. He finally murmurs into Blaine's forehead, "My ears are freezing. I'd better get you to the library."
They resume their walk across the quad, and though Kurt doesn't take Blaine's arm again, they are close enough that their arms are touching from shoulder to elbow.
"Kurt – " Blaine starts, but Kurt interrupts him.
"You should go on that date with Rachel," Kurt says. That wasn't what Blaine had been about to bring up, but, okay. "She's a nice girl. Well, underneath it all. A little challenging to one's patience, maybe. But I think you'll have a good time."
They walk in silence the rest of the way to the library.
------------------
From Kurt: You asleep yet?
From Blaine Warbler: No.
From Kurt: Nervous about your big date?
From Blaine Warbler: No. Homework. But I haven't figured out what to wear.
From Kurt: You don't usually have a problem with that.
From Blaine Warbler: Promised I would dress up as Ryan O'Neal.
From Kurt: Not exactly known for his fashion sense.
From Blaine Warbler: She found a movie theater that's playing Love Story.
From Kurt: Charming. Haven't you seen that like a dozen times?
From Blaine Warbler: Got all of Ali McGraw's lines memorized.
From Kurt: Hopefully not too well. Rachel's a little competitive about things like that.
From Blaine Warbler: Does she have them memorized too?
From Kurt: Oh yes. She tried to convince me last year that it would be perfect for sectionals, and I had to keep pointing out that it's not a musical.
From Blaine Warbler: Not to sound like a 13-year-old girl, but LOL.
From Kurt: To be fair, she said she could turn it into one. And I'm sure she could.
--------end of chapter--------
Chapter 3: Another Wednesday of Things I Haven't Done Author's notes: Thanks again to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
verdandil for betaing! Any mistakes or stupidity are fully my own. (Comment or message if you catch any errors.)
You've probably already heard Blaine singing "Misery" umpteen-billion times, but in case you haven't, here it is. Just keep in mind that this isn't at all how he sings it in this chapter.
Here is a rainbow unicorn with heart forlikeasouffle and anyone else who needs it.
Oh, and please comment, because I am a comment whore. The more comments I get, the more I write!
Chapter title: On Tuesday, You Made Me Warm
Characters: Kurt/Blaine pre-dating, Rachel, Blaine's roommate (OC)
Rating: PG-13 (entire story)
Spoilers: 2.14 (Blame It On the Alcohol). Incorporates some things we've learned about the characters from canon after 2.14, but no plot spoilers. Spoilers for the movie Love Story in chapter 3 and references to Brokeback Mountain in Chapter 4.
Warnings for this and future chapters: language
Word count: About 17,000 overall, 2,859 this part
Summary: The fact the he enjoyed kissing Rachel at the party is confusing for Blaine. But what's more confusing is Kurt.
Chapter Summary: Blaine is tired of being perfect.
Author’s Note: My attempt at figuring out what was going on in the boys' heads during 'Blame It on the Alcohol' and why that fight in the Lima Bean didn't end their friendship. This story is finished. I'll be posting one chapter a day until all chapters are up (finishes on Friday in U.S.). More complete author's notes will be posted as a separate entry at the end of the week.
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Chapter 2: On Tuesday, You Made Me Warm
It's after 2 a.m. and Blaine is finally almost done with his essay on the Mexican-American War. He just has to clean up his citations a bit. Which is a little hard to do almost four hours past his regular bedtime, but there's really no choice, since he cried and slept his afternoon away instead of doing homework.
His phone flashes and he flips it open. He reads the message (From Kurt: Sorry I am such a dick.), and he would laugh from relief if Justin weren't snoring peacefully in the other bed.
He chews his lip as he thinks about what to say because, yeah, Kurt was a dick. But since talking to Justin, Blaine's been trying to reconstruct the argument in his head – which is actually pretty difficult, because Blaine kind of turned his brain off somewhere in the middle of it – and did he really compare Kurt to Karofsky? Wow. If that's not a dick move, Blaine doesn't know what is.
So he stares and stares at Sorry I'm such a dick and tries to weigh Kurt's bigotry against his own stupidity to see which one is worse, but the scale in his head won't tip either way.
His thumb starts to move over the buttons of his phone.
To Kurt: No. You *were* a dick. Not expecting you to make habit out of it.
From Kurt: You're sweet.
To Kurt: Anyway, I'm no saint, either.
From Kurt: Don't turn this around. I'm trying to apologize.
To Kurt: I'm allowed to apologize, too.
From Kurt: No. *I* am an asshole and *you* really are too kind.
To Kurt: No. I think those might be exactly the wrong words to describe me right now.
From Kurt: Not sure what to say to that.
To Kurt: I'm sorry I'm so confused right now.
From Kurt: I know.
To Kurt: I think it's going to be a really hard week.
From Kurt: Probably.
To Kurt: I wish I was as good as you are at figuring personal stuff out.
From Kurt: That's the impression I try to give. Not sure it's true.
To Kurt: I really don't understand myself sometimes.
From Kurt: I know.
To Kurt: I'm really glad you texted me.
From Kurt: Me too. But I thought you'd be asleep.
To Kurt: Yeah. I should probably go to bed and finish my report in the morning.
From Kurt: Good night?
To Kurt: Good night, Kurt.
From Kurt: Good night, Blaine Warbler.
------------------
Warbler rehearsal goes surprisingly well, given how exhausted Blaine looks. Blaine sits down in his usual place next to Kurt for the first part of the meeting, and even though they don’t really say anything but breathy and slightly embarrassed "hey"s to each other, Kurt feels reassured. Wes announces after warm-ups that they'll start working on "Misery," to which Blaine says, "If you don't mind that I'm going to totally suck. I got, like, three hours of sleep last night."
"Well, there's 15 other people here who need to learn the song, Blaine, so I really don't care," says Wes.
Kurt can see the tops of Blaine's ears flush pink, and is a little flustered by how positively delighted that makes him feel.
Blaine does fine, anyway. He's not somersaulting on the couches or tap-dancing on the tables or dancing flirtingly around the other Warblers. He's just standing there, in one spot, sounding beautifully, appropriately miserable at all the right parts. Kurt never thought a Maroon 5 song could make him feel so – well, make him feel anything.
It's confusing and a little breathtaking to see Blaine this way. He's always been so confident and sure of himself – dangerously so, if Kurt's honest about it. It led to Blaine almost getting the crap beaten out of him by Karofsky that day in the stairwell and it led to Blaine convincing the entirety of the Warblers that it was a great idea to help him sexually harass a Gap employee.
Now that Kurt thinks about it, he realizes that Blaine's self-assurance has been slowly dissipating since that episode at the Gap. Blaine hasn't given Kurt much unsolicited advice lately about the order in which he should do his homework (history first because Dr. Fairfax will never accept a late assignment) or the best spot to sit in the library (back to the south window so he can get the advantage of diffuse sunlight but not be distracted by the birds flitting about the dogwood branches below) or the best shortcuts from any point on campus to any other point (too many to summarize).
When they study together now, Kurt sometimes catches Blaine looking at him, eyebrows scrunched together and lips slightly parted, as if Blaine has gotten stuck on a particularly difficult geometry proof or can't remember the present subjunctive form of asseoir. "Do you need help?" Kurt will say, and Blaine will look a little startled and shake his head or mumble, "No," before turning back to his books.
And then, last week in Blaine's dorm room, Blaine looked up from his email and said, frowning, "Kurt, I need your advice."
Kurt was pretty sure he had never heard Blaine speak those words to anyone, not even a teacher.
"Yes?" Kurt said, taking a sip of coffee to quell his shock.
"My dad found a '58 Corvette Roadster and he says he'll buy it if I want to restore it with him this summer."
Kurt coughed so hard that some of the coffee ran out his nose.
"You okay?" said Blaine, bringing a box of Kleenex over to Kurt. He sat down next to Kurt on the bed and tentatively patted his back.
Kurt wiped his nose and coughed a few more times for good measure. "Yeah, I'm fine," he said. "Just – that's a really nice car. Maybe even better than the Bel Air you guys worked on before."
"I know," sighed Blaine, drawing his hand slowly down Kurt's back before pulling it back into his own lap. He stared at the floor.
Kurt tried to ignore the tingling in his spine. "But?"
"I'm not really all that into cars. Being able to drive them is good. But if mine breaks down, well – " Blaine looked up at Kurt and forced a smile. "Maybe I can just have you fix it for me?"
The skin around Blaine's eyes and jaw twitched almost imperceptibly, and it made Kurt's stomach flip. "What do you want to do, Blaine?"
"I don't want to pretend to my dad anymore. I'm tired of always being what people expect of me, Kurt."
Kurt took a breath. "I, for one, just expect you to be Blaine. And your father needs to learn that that's all he can expect of you, too. You're pretty perfect just the way you are, anyway."
Blaine's smile wasn't forced this time, but it was small, the corners of his mouth just slightly upturned. There was something shy and almost sad about it. "Thanks, Kurt," he said, resting his hand on Kurt's knee for just a second as he stood up. Kurt wished Blaine would have just stayed there and told him what else was wrong.
Desperate and confused. Yes, these seem to be the right lyrics to describe Blaine Anderson these days. It must be why he sounds so good singing this song.
I am in misery.
There ain't nobody who can comfort me.
Why won't you answer me?
The silence is slowly killing me.
Kurt wonders if the fact that he really, really wants to comfort Blaine right now makes him a bit of an angst whore.
After the Warblers have run through the song a few times, Wes tells the section he's been leading that they've got it now, and he walks away from them to listen more closely to Blaine. "Put some more vim into it, Warbler Blaine!" he chirps. It confirms Kurt's suspicion that the Warbler Council could hear angels sing and the only thing they'd have to say about it was that it wasn't peppy enough.
Blaine rolls his eyes at Wes and mouths "three hours of sleep" instead of singing one of the oh yeahs. Kurt thinks it's the closest Blaine has ever come to talking back to someone on the Council, and he rather likes it.
When rehearsal ends, Kurt bends over to grab his messenger bag. He feels a hand on his shoulder and he knows he shouldn't expect Blaine to be ready to speak to him yet, but he hopes it's him, anyway.
"Hey," Kurt exhales as he stands up and catches Blaine's eyes, which are tired and so, so lost.
"Are you going home?" Blaine asks weakly.
"Yeah," Kurt answers. "I told Dad and Carole that I'd make dinner tonight."
"Oh," says Blaine, his eyes darting downward, and Kurt wants to wrap his arms around Blaine and let him bury his face in Kurt's chest. Kurt wants to promise to never, never hurt Blaine again, to always be his refuge.
Instead, Kurt says, "I can walk you to the library, if that's where you're headed."
Blaine smiles, and it's a real smile, bigger than the ones Blaine wore even when he was drunk. And, yes – Kurt is so relieved to see it.
------------------
Not that I didn't care, it's that I didn't know.
It's not what I didn't feel, it's what I didn't show.
Blaine gives Kurt his arm as they step out into the dull, gray February light. The wind is fast and bitter, and Blaine can feel Kurt huddle in a little closer to his side.
"I should probably start out with 'How was your day?', but I think from rehearsal I already know the answer," Kurt says.
"Was I that bad?" says Blaine.
"No. You were that raw," says Kurt. "I thought Wes was out of line. 'Vim' is inappropriate for a song about heartbreak."
"'Vim' is appropriate for every song the Warblers do," says Blaine, kicking the toe of his shoe into a spot of frozen mud as they step onto the quad.
"Respect the wingtips," Kurt says. "Do you know how much Florsheims cost?" For some reason, the admonishment doesn't annoy Blaine – it makes his whole chest feel warm.
They say nothing for a moment, just walking forward with their arms linked, watching the bare trees draw silhouettes against the sky. This is nice, Blaine thinks. Maybe we can just forget yesterday happened.
But then Kurt slows to a stop and he removes his hand from Blaine's arm. Blaine shivers. Kurt's eyes are watering – maybe it's from the wind – and his nostrils tremble with each breath. Kurt looks down at the ground and shoves his hands into his pockets.
"Kurt?"
Kurt raises his eyes to Blaine's, and Blaine's brain trips back into that moment Saturday night when the beauty of Kurt's eyes struck him like a revelation.
"Blaine, I was horrible to you yesterday." Kurt's voice is shaking and it makes Blaine's whole body ache. "I was scared and I freaked out and I turned on my eviscerator. I should never do that to you. I never want to do that to you again."
"Maybe," Blaine says. He hates seeing Kurt in pain. He would do anything to make it it stop. "But I kind of saw it coming, and I didn't do anything to keep it from happening."
"That's not your job."
"I know. I know it isn't. What I mean is, what I mean is that – I haven't been real with you, and I think that kind of set us up for a train wreck. "
Kurt's eyebrows scrunch up in confusion. "What do you mean, 'not real'? Sometimes I think you're honest to a fault." He shoves his hands deeper into the pockets of his overcoat. "Well, not to a fault, exactly. Just, you've been honest with me even when it's not the easiest thing for me to hear." Blaine wonders if Kurt's talking about the When Harry Met Sally discussion or about Blaine's description of Rachel's kissing, but now isn't the time to ask.
Blaine shakes his head. "It's not the stuff I say, Kurt. It's –." He's not sure how to explain it, but Kurt is looking at him patiently, just waiting – not blinking, but not staring, either – and that's helping Blaine to find the words. It's the way that Blaine wanted Kurt to look at him yesterday at the Lima Bean.
"Kurt, ever since I figured out I was gay I've needed everyone to think I'm perfect, that I'm in control, that I know everything, that I'm someone to look up to and I'm charming and flawless and irreproachable. I need them to think those things so they can't hate me, even if they want to."
Kurt keeps his eyes on Blaine's, and God – with all their sympathy and tenderness, they make Blaine feel so strong. "Oh, honey," Kurt sighs.
Blaine grabs Kurt's wrists and tugs them gently until Kurt's hands are free of his pockets. Blaine wraps them in his own. Maybe it's too much – he doesn't know – but he needs to touch Kurt, he needs Kurt's hands to ground him. Even if they're just friends and that's all they'll ever be.
Blaine feels Kurt's thumbs rubbing the back of his fingers and he thinks maybe Kurt needed it too. The thought makes his knees weak, but somehow he keeps standing.
"Kurt, what I need from you –" Blaine swallows hard. He looks down at Kurt's long fingers wrapped in his, and the sight steadies him. "I thought I needed you to think I was perfect, too. So I set myself up to be your role model, Kurt. And I just can't do it anymore. I need you to see who I really am. I'm a kid, and I make mistakes. Sometimes I make really big mistakes and hurt people I really care about."
"And sometimes you're really wonderful," says Kurt, his voice on the edge of breaking.
Blaine looks up at Kurt, those perfect, patient, cerulean eyes, and breathes deeply. "Kurt, I screwed up royally this weekend. So just please, please know that I'm sorry that I hurt you and please – I would feel so much better if I knew that you don't need to look up to me. I just need you – I just need you next to me. Okay?"
"Oh, honey" – there it is again, and Blaine's heart skips a beat even as he tells himself that Kurt calls Mercedes that all the time and anyway Blaine doesn't really want it to mean anything more than that when he's not drunk, right? – "I kind of had my suspicions that you were human."
Oh, shit. Kurt is crying. And Blaine thinks he should probably feel really bad about that because the last thing Kurt would want is to have tears streaking down his face in a bitter, 16-mile-an-hour-wind and he is going to have to use so much moisturizer to make up for that; but Kurt is smiling and all Blaine can feel is warmth and joy.
Kurt pulls Blaine's head to his shoulder, wraps his arms around Blaine's back, and Blaine feels so safe. He wishes he could hear Kurt's heart beat through that heavy wool coat. Instead, he hears Kurt whisper, "And yes, I'll stand by your side as long as you let me."
They stay like that for a while as Kurt sniffling slows. He finally murmurs into Blaine's forehead, "My ears are freezing. I'd better get you to the library."
They resume their walk across the quad, and though Kurt doesn't take Blaine's arm again, they are close enough that their arms are touching from shoulder to elbow.
"Kurt – " Blaine starts, but Kurt interrupts him.
"You should go on that date with Rachel," Kurt says. That wasn't what Blaine had been about to bring up, but, okay. "She's a nice girl. Well, underneath it all. A little challenging to one's patience, maybe. But I think you'll have a good time."
They walk in silence the rest of the way to the library.
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From Kurt: You asleep yet?
From Blaine Warbler: No.
From Kurt: Nervous about your big date?
From Blaine Warbler: No. Homework. But I haven't figured out what to wear.
From Kurt: You don't usually have a problem with that.
From Blaine Warbler: Promised I would dress up as Ryan O'Neal.
From Kurt: Not exactly known for his fashion sense.
From Blaine Warbler: She found a movie theater that's playing Love Story.
From Kurt: Charming. Haven't you seen that like a dozen times?
From Blaine Warbler: Got all of Ali McGraw's lines memorized.
From Kurt: Hopefully not too well. Rachel's a little competitive about things like that.
From Blaine Warbler: Does she have them memorized too?
From Kurt: Oh yes. She tried to convince me last year that it would be perfect for sectionals, and I had to keep pointing out that it's not a musical.
From Blaine Warbler: Not to sound like a 13-year-old girl, but LOL.
From Kurt: To be fair, she said she could turn it into one. And I'm sure she could.
--------end of chapter--------
Chapter 3: Another Wednesday of Things I Haven't Done Author's notes: Thanks again to
verdandil for betaing! Any mistakes or stupidity are fully my own. (Comment or message if you catch any errors.)You've probably already heard Blaine singing "Misery" umpteen-billion times, but in case you haven't, here it is. Just keep in mind that this isn't at all how he sings it in this chapter.
Here is a rainbow unicorn with heart for
likeasouffle and anyone else who needs it.Oh, and please comment, because I am a comment whore. The more comments I get, the more I write!