Blaine watched as the boys the boys on bikes raced by his car, up and back down the street. They were probably ten or so – he'd never been good at judging ages. It looked like they were trying to catch air off the speed bumps the cut through the residential street. They peddled fearlessly fast towards the little hill and the setting sun beyond, their legs moving too fast for Blaine's eyes. Disappointment flashed briefly in their eyes when their wheels stayed in contact with the pavement but it was quickly replaced by an even stronger determination. Blaine wondered what exactly would flash across their faces if they succeeded in their attempt to defy the law of gravity. Would it be terror or pride? He wanted to wait and see but had sat in his parked car long enough.
He'd never been this nervous walking up the short path to the Hummel's front door. Even that first time after they had started dating for real. After all, it wasn't the boy on the other side of the door that scared him, nor was it the family that had welcomed him and their relationship so easily and probably before even he himself had. No, what scared Blaine, what made his palms sweat as he fiddled endlessly with the shirt cuffs peeking out from his suit jacket and his voice shake as he fumbled through his usually coherent brain to sort out words and thoughts was the destination for tonight's dare and the reason for the suit on the first place.
Not going wasn't an option. Technically, he knew it was but the instant that smile spread across Kurt's face when he had said yes, all technicalities had faded away into the white noise of the busy restaurant. He'd seen Kurt smile before of course but that day he questioned that fact. It was simply so inhibited. There was no fear or need to play it cool. It was honest and light and so full of joy. When people talked about young love, that smile is what they described. And for more reason than one, Blaine wanted relationship to be an embodiment of that ideal. So prom, prom was a go. He just needed to convince himself that he was just as excited for it as Kurt.
He smiled politely when Burt answered the door, shaking his hand and hoping he'd gotten most of the sweat off while he was waiting on the porch.
"Kurt," the burly man in front of him called up the stairs. "Blaine's here. I'm sure he'll be down in a minute," he chuckled turning back to Blaine. "He's been bustling about all afternoon."
"He can come up," Kurt's voice echoed from above.
"Oh he can, can he?"
Blaine smiled at the comment. He'd spent many afternoons in this house doing homework, watching football, or something a little more intimate tucked up away in Kurt's room. And if he'd learned one thing while being here, it was that Kurt's sass didn't just spring up in the gene pool out of nowhere, a mutation of something sweeter. Oh no, Kurt inherited that gene the good old Mendelian way directly from his father. It was something Blaine wasn't entirely sure everyone picked up on but that just made his little observations of it all the better. And just like Kurt's, his father's smirk and raised eye brow were all in good nature and so Blaine shrugged his shoulders and headed for the stairs.
Kurt's door was cracked but he knocked lightly anyway before pushing it open. Kurt was standing in front of his mirror fiddling with his own cuffs.
"You look ready," Blaine said in almost disbelief. His auburn hair was coiffed to perfection with a volume that Blaine would never understand and the roughly cut hem of the kilt had been stitched neatly since he last saw it. Not a thread or hair out of place. "You look great." He really did.
"Thanks," he smiled, his blush ruining the pristine outfit that exuded a mature confidence if it could be said to ruin anything. Blaine certainly didn't think so. "If you think it's too much," he said, giving his kilt a swish. "I can change. I ironed my dress pants."
Blaine followed the head nod to the desk chair where a pair of charcoal grey pants were draped over the back. Like prom though, the kilt was no longer up for debate. Kurt was proud of it and pride was sometimes hard to come by. Blaine certainly wasn't going to be the one to shame it away.
"No, no pants," he said shaking his head definitively. Kurt smiled and Blaine thought of adding something a little suggestive to the end of that but refrained. No need to ruin a moment. "You also iron your sweats?" he asked instead, noticing the pile on the seat of the chair. A part of him wouldn't have even been surprised.
"No," Kurt said with a scowl and a cock of his hip. The slight upward curve to his very pink lips told Blaine however that his annoyance was only minor. "I dug them out for you in case you changed your mind. I didn't think hanging out in the monkey suit would be too comfy.
"You saying I look like a monkey?" he said taking a step towards his boyfriend knowing his own grin was now giving himself away. "I thought I looked dashing." Standing right in front of him now, Blaine wrapped his arms around Kurt's waist, sliding his hands under the back of his jacket. "But if you think I look like our inferior, primate, ancestors, then maybe I should find a date with more reasonable standards."
"You don't even go to school here. Technically you're not invited without me. Also, I'm pretty sure that's not how evolution works."
"Rachel would take me in a heartbeat," he said, leaning up to peck Kurt on the nose when he grumbled at the mention of her name.
"So you want to go then? You're sure? I checked the movie listings too."
"Yes," he smiled, now suddenly sure, his suit no longer feeling constricting. Now, knowing he had an escape route and his boyfriend was willing to lead him to it, now he really, really wanted to go. Without a question.