Author's Note: This is unabashed Klainosfky right here. Written to fill several different requests from different people. Also written because this fandom is so incredibly and weirdly competitive, and I don't understand it. There isn't much live-and-let-live here, and though I have my theories as to why that is, the fact is it's a little draining. Dave and Max and Chris like each other. Kurt and Blaine and Dave, I predict, will all like each other well enough. Seems absurd for their fans to absolutely hate each other, especially when in the history of fanfic there are thousands of fandoms with thousands of conflicting pairings whose fans somehow manage to get along. /self-important opinion spouting.
This is a two-part story, but the second part (the porn, for serious there will be PORN here) isn't quite done and I'm tired of not posting things. So here's part one, part two should be up tomorrow.
This is future!fic, with the slightest hints of a D/s thing going on, but not anything hard core.
It's not that Colin actually hates Kurt and Blaine. That would be ridiculous. Colin doesn't hate people, for one, and even if he did, the two of them would probably be the hardest people to hate he's ever met in his life.
They're happy guys, always talkative and warm and welcoming. They're nice, which is rare in any kind of show business, even at the barely-paying theatrical company level. They're insanely talented, they're both attractive in very different ways. They have been uniformly kind to everyone Colin has ever seen them talking to.
Kurt can lean towards sarcasm and on bad days he can be a little short, and Blaine has a tendency to upstage people when he's not reeled in by whoever their director is from show to show. But if those are the biggest faults Colin can find (and they are – he's been looking), then they're really not worth mentioning. After all, Kurt's shortness tends to come from real tiredness and frustration, and who hasn't been there? And Blaine...Colin is a cynical bastard about other actors and their egos, but he actually believes Blaine when he says he doesn't mean to steal focus during a scene.
He doesn't hate Blaine or Kurt. And he's tried. He just can't. They are unhateable.
He likes them, damn it.
They just really confuse him.
Everyone assumed they were together from the start. They auditioned for the company together, they come to every rehearsal and every after-rehearsal outing together. They've known each other for ages, and with the availability of easily-accessible, hot and interested gay actors around them, it's obvious that they aren't looking to hook up with anyone else.
But now no one is really sure. The theatre is a pretty damned liberal environment: most of the cast and crew are envious gay boys or sassy girls who want nothing more than to watch two pretty guys making out, but they have never so much as kissed that Colin has ever seen. They touch each other sometimes, but only in the casual ways everyone touches. Patting hands, nudging shoulders, an elbow to the side or a tap on the shoulder for attention.
Casual. Nothing worth noting at all. Hell, Blaine's more open with Colin than with Kurt – he tends to greet the guys he knows the best with hugs and occasional kisses on the cheek, but he hasn't hugged Kurt once.
Sad thing is, Colin does know Blaine better than a lot of the guys. Blaine and Kurt's second year in the company, Colin and Blaine got cast twice in a row in some pretty interweaving roles, and rehearsing together and running lines and discussing motivations and character histories took them out to bars or diners pretty frequently for a while.
He knows Blaine better than other people in the company know him, but he still doesn't know anything about him, really. Not personally.
Colin's kind of a nosy guy: he's nearing forty, he's come to terms with himself. He accepts his nosiness the same way he accepts that his watching of Kurt and Blaine and constant wondering about them is based in some pretty serious envy.
But come on: they're young, they're gorgeous. Kurt is this ridiculously pretty cupie doll with skin so pale and perfect it might be ceramic. He sings like an angel whose balls never dropped, and one flash of those blue eyes at the right moment has made audiences cringe or weep in turn. Blaine is something out of one of those teen-dream magazines at the newstands. Charming and handsome, just enough trace of some exotic genes to make him perpetually mysterious, and when he's playing the hero there isn't a person in the audience who doesn't want him the moment he strides out on stage.
There's a lot to be jealous of there. Their youth, their looks, their talent. Their closeness: nobody knows if they're together or not, but everyone knows that if they aren't fucking then that's all they don't share.
So yeah, Colin is jealous. And he's nosy. He watches too closely. He moves quietly hoping to overhear some clue when they're huddled together talking and grinning at each other like they aren't glued at the hip every moment of the day.
"It's impossible," Julie, Colin's favorite hag and his best friend in the company, said once when they were talking about the Wonder Twins, "for anyone to be that close to either of those boys and not be fucking them. I want to fuck them, for god's sake. If they were all up in my space the way they are with each other, I'd definitely be making that shit happen somehow. Roofies. Something."
And it is kind of a cliché but based in truth that a lot of friends in the gay community have either fucked or are just biding their time until the circumstances are right. Maybe just the theatrical gay community, whatever. That's life as Colin knows it.
Seems impossible that they haven't, but it seems unlikely that if they are fucking they'd bother keeping it quiet.
He doesn't get it.
Colin's nosy, and a little too old to waste time obsessing over something like this for too long before it stops being fun. So...eventually he decides he's tired of trying to stumble on the truth.
Eventually, he just asks.
It's Kurt he corners – Kurt is a little more ballsy than Blaine, less likely to be prudish about silence. Kurt's the blunt one.
But Kurt just blinks at him like he's speaking Moldovian. "What are you talking about?"
"You and Blaine. What are you?"
"What are we? Do you want, like, a scientific answer or something more philosophical?" Kurt's grinning already, which just tells Colin that he knows damn well what Colin's asking about. "Are we the substance of a god's dreams? Are we mammals? Give me some direction here."
Kids. Colin rolls his eyes but obediently just comes out with it. "Are you fucking? Are you together? Or are you fucking eunuchs?"
Kurt laughs (pretty, high and light and fuck him anyway). "Ohhh, that. Safe to say neither of us are eunuchs." His eyes go behind Colin as if looking for Blaine. Or distraction.
They're backstage, and everyone's too busy celebrating (Secret Garden closes tonight, it might not be the right time for a question and answer session, but Colin's lived through a thousand closing nights, it's nothing sacred anymore) and no one comes to Kurt's aid.
Colin waits until Kurt looks back at him. "Well? It's an easy question. What kind of relationship do you guys actually have?"
Kurt opens his mouth. He hesitates. He smiles a little, like there's some private answer in his mind that he doesn't want to share.
God, to be in his twenties again, and sure that everything about his private life is fascinating and deep. Colin sighs.
"It's just...it's not..."
Kurt's got a smudge of foundation under his jaw, and it's distracting. Colin either wants to grab a wet-wipe or lick it off, he can't decide.
"There's no real, um...it's not all that—"
"Kurt!"
They both look over.
Blaine, of course, flushed from removing his makeup, hair disheveled, eyes dark with eyeliner he didn't get all the way off. There's a look on his face Colin is used to seeing on opening nights – excitement, anticipation so huge it seems to vibrate through him.
He doesn't even seem to notice Colin. He rushes up to Kurt and grabs his arm with both hands, and his eyes are fucking beautiful lit up like there's a spot shining right on him.
"He's here," he says breathlessly.
Colin's eyebrows rise. He? Well well, who is 'he'? Agent? Director? Critic? Jesus-who-is-the-Christ?
Kurt's entire face changes. The slightly smug grin blooms into something huge, something bright and wide-open that all but splits his face in half. "Oh my God!"
Blaine beams.
"He said he wasn't going to...oh my God!" Kurt wheels and dives towards the nearest mirror. "Oh god, my hair is-"
"Kurt, come on! He's here now!"
Kurt looks back at Blaine through the mirror and they share a moment, excited and thrilled and glowing from it. He doesn't look back at his reflection (which is notable: Kurt Hummel loves himself a mirror), just turns to Blaine and grabs his hand when Blaine reaches out, and the two go bouncing off towards the thick of the cast and crew and encroaching guests.
Well. Colin's not about to stay behind.
He heads after them – his friends all saw the show last week, and he'll see everyone at the cast party at the director's place when they get out of here – sliding around actors excitedly stripping off costumes and makeup, or crew hustling around doing actual work, or visitors wandering around with wide eyes like the backstage of a theatre is fucking Narnia.
He pays them no mind. He's on a mission here. He keeps his eye on Kurt's impeccable hair since Blaine's shorter and easier to lose in a crowd. He stays behind but close, following them towards the side door that lets out into the alley near the crew parking lot.
The door's open, letting in unwelcome cold air, and Colin looks past Kurt to the door when he feels the breeze.
He stops in his tracks.
Okay, he doesn't know what the hell's going on, but he has absolutely no fucking doubt who 'he' is.
'He' is standing against the wall by the door, watching the crowds moving and chattering around him. Light hazel eyes are crinkled in vague amusement, like they're still acting out a show just for him. Framed with dark hair just long enough to curl in places, and a pair of arched eyebrows that some genius at some salon must obsess over for hours over to get just right like that.
He's in a pair of distressed jeans (the distress seems to come from their desperate attempt to cling to thighs so solid and firm that Colin's mouth waters) a blue button-down shirt stretched over a solid chest, a dark jacket that frames broad shoulders.
Colin has this recurring fantasy about running into one of the Cincinnati Bengals after a home game, and if the anonymous Bengal in his dreams doesn't look just like this guy...he's sure as fuck going to from now on.
Jesus Christ, if Colin didn't have a fucking domestic partner at home...
Colin's not the only one gawking at this stranger. He spots Julie over by the costume racks, her mouth just wide open and gaping as she stares. The ridiculously femme assistant director, Pete, is over by the sound monitors, and the look on his face is practically vulgar. Colin can see the things Pete wants to do to this guy.
God, even Jackie, their Nazi stage manager. She hates everybody who has ever or will ever live on this earth, but she's eying the newcomer like she's suddenly willing to make an exception.
Colin looks back at 'He' as Kurt and Blaine fight their way through the incoming stream of people that inevitably crowd a backstage after closing night of any show.
They stumble their way into the clear and approach him side by side, and those excited grins on their faces haven't eased up in the slightest.
'He' turns his head as they approach, seeing them coming. He straightens up off the wall, and the smile that tugs at his lips is small and private.
Colin's not close enough to hear them, but he sees Blaine speaking, can practically hear the way his words all tumble over each other like always when he's excited. He sees Kurt nodding in response to whatever Blaine's saying. He sees that both of them keep their gazes glued on this guy like he might blink out of existence if they turn away.
Shit. Colin'd probably look at him that way, too.
He suddenly holds up a hand, and Blaine's words cut off instantly, and Kurt's all but bouncing on his toes in barely-concealed excitement.
He's holding two flowers. Miniature - so small and delicate they must have been bred that way – deep red roses on short stems. He smiles at Kurt and Blaine, taking one flower in each hand and stretching them out.
He speaks. Just briefly, a few words at most. His mouth opens and he smiles through his words and he holds out those flowers, and Jesus. His eyes stay on the two of them like the entire universe outside of them is this melted cloud of abstract nonsense, not worth a moment of his time.
Blaine reaches out first. His long, pale fingers take the offered flower, and he's glowing like it's a fucking Tony Award.
Kurt stares at the flower and up at He, and he jumps forward suddenly and hugs the guy so hard that if He wasn't the solid Adonis He was they'd probably both be on the ground.
He only smiles a little wider, circling an arm around Kurt and exchanging looks with Blaine, and.
And Colin's a cynical gossipy ass, maybe, but he knows instantly that he would do anything if someone looked at him with that kind of fondness.
Kurt steps back after a moment, flushed red, and the flower is clenched tight in his hand. Kurt murmurs something, dropping his eyes, but He only chuckles. He reaches out a broad, square hand, fingertips sliding under Kurt's chin and tilting his head back up.
Eye contact. Jesus, Colin can feel it from where he is, yards away and surrounded by yammering idiots. Kurt looks at 'He' and He looks back with that same doting fondness in his eyes, and Christ on a fucking cracker, the guy's hot.
No...not even just the guy. The guy's fucking hot, yeah, but it's the way he looks at Kurt. The way Kurt's delicate features make his hand look massive, strong and solid. The way his gaze shifts back to Blaine, and his smile grows to include him, and Blaine watches him like he's watching a fucking sunrise.
And there's no doubt in Colin's mind anymore.
The reason no one could ever make any sense out of Kurt and Blaine's relationship is because they were all missing this giant (sexy) piece of the puzzle.
While He's standing here with them, Kurt and Blaine drift towards each other in a way that broadcasts that of course they're fucking, of course they've tasted every little part of each other. When they exchange glances there's an unmistakable heat between them that Colin can't believe has never been there before.
They're fucking, they're together, they're in love like something from a sixteen year old girl's diary.
But only when He is with them.
Or...Colin can't miss how they watch this guy like subjects waiting on a blessing from their king, and how He smiles so affectionately and possessively. Maybe Kurt and Blaine are only allowed to show their feelings for each other when all three of them are together. Maybe they're forbidden from indulging in each other when He isn't there. A little kinky, but not unheard of. And Colin enjoys a little kink, so once he starts thinking that way he isn't in a hurry to stop.
There's a sudden jostle around him as a little crowd of gabbers breaks off and heads for the door – the herd beginning the trek to that night's watering hole – and for a few seconds he loses sight of Kurt and Blaine and He.
When he sees them again they're in motion. Kurt's got He's hand in his and is tugging him away from the door towards the dressing rooms and backstage. Blaine is locked at He's side, grinning at Kurt like he does every day.
They pass Colin just a foot or so away. Colin holds his breath when they pass, suddenly wondering what He would do if He saw how hard Colin was watching them. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy you'd want to piss off.
When Colin glances back to watch them go, he sees that Blaine rather unmistakably has a finger hooked in a belt loop of He's jeans, and He's hand is resting, firm and broad, at the small of Blaine's back.
The three of them vanish back towards the dressing room, Kurt's mouth moving a mile a minute as he gestures around and tries to show off the place. But even though He follows willingly enough, He only has eyes for the two men moving with him.
And. Yeah. Holy shit. Colin's not confused anymore. Not in the slightest.
Which doesn't mean he won't be asking Kurt about all this again. It just means that what he'll be asking for are details, not answers.
It wasn't as if there was anything particularly secret about their relationship. Kurt knew that people gossiped and whispered and questioned, they had since he and Blaine started at the company. Theatre was a small universe, everyone knew everything about everyone, and if they didn't then they feel entitled to.
Kurt knew there'd been interested eyes on him before. He was also very familiar with the nervous, uncertain look on a guy's face when he approached Kurt to ask if Blaine was available.
Kurt didn't lie to anyone. When someone went through with it, asked Kurt if Blaine was available, Kurt just told them to ask Blaine. And when someone asked Kurt if he was seeing anyone, Kurt would tell them as nicely as he could that he wasn't looking.
He didn't lie, but he didn't offer up the truth. Neither did Blaine.
They weren't hiding anything. That would never even have occurred to them. Their close friends all knew exactly what was going on. They had met each other's families (except Blaine's, but that's because his dad was a heaping bag of redneck shit, not because they were ashamed).
They didn't even try to pretend that more than one of the three bedrooms in their house was occupied. Dave set up his office set up in one of the extra rooms, and the other was wide open and empty except for mats and mirrors Dave hung on the wall for them, so they could watch themselves rehearsing choreography.
Or...doing other things.
They weren't hiding, and there wasn't a single thing about their relationship that Kurt was embarrassed by.
The reason he and Blaine never gave out details was that it was absolutely impossible to explain it to someone who didn't know all of them. The people in the company didn't know Dave, so it wouldn't have made any sense to them at all.
How did he make someone who was just meeting him even begin to understand?
How did he explain their history, every phase of Kurt's relationship with Dave, and with Blaine, and with them both together?
People got the wrong idea. Kurt used to try to explain it. When he did shows at other theatres, before landing the (barely) paying steady company role, he used to make an effort.
Yes, he would say, Blaine and I are together.
Why didn't they ever kiss, or hold hands, or anything like that? Because Dave wasn't there. Who's Dave?
That's where it stopped.
Who's Dave?
Kurt tried calling Dave their 'partner' once, and it felt all wrong. He even tried calling Dave their 'daddy' after he heard the term used in some ridiculous S&M clip he and Blaine giggled over online. But that wasn't right either.
He couldn't label Dave something easy. There was no description that painted their history. No term for the path that they took to get where they were.
There was time, and tears, and threats. There were fists and blood and shouts and more tears.
There was Dave in his Bullywhip beret, and Blaine turning his nose up at him the first time he tried to walk them both to class senior year.
There was the day that Dave came out of the rear door of the gym late one afternoon and found Blaine pushed on his knees in front of the sour-faced school janitor, who was unbuttoning his workpants, and some snickering, disgusting cretin there with him. That was the day that Dave put two grown men in the hospital until they were healed enough that the cops moved them to jail instead, thanks to Blaine's statement and the nightmarish amounts of porn featuring teary-eyed young boys they found on the computer at the apartment the two men shared.
The way Dave walked between them every day afterward, the way he broke Jacob Ben Israel's nose the first and only time he tried to ask Blaine to tell his microphone all about the cops and the hearing and everything.
The way Blaine watched Dave after that, like his unflattering letterman jacket was covering spandex tights and a cape.
There was the part of the story when Blaine and Kurt, so happily in love and eager to help their poor lonely friend who wasn't so lucky, set Dave up on a date with a boy from Dalton who used to flirt with Blaine enough to earn Kurt's hatred. The way Dave started smiling and relaxing while he and Bastard Boy dated. Dave started to let go of his fear and accept what he was, and it was like a whole new person forming as Kurt watched.
And Kurt couldn't stop thinking about the new Dave.
There's the part where Bastard, who apparently was Absolute Idiot too, called Dave and broke things off with the blase confession that he was screwing around with some twenty-five year old loser who worked at a gas station. The part where shiny new smiling Dave got his heart broken.
All those things couldn't be told in any brief way, not enough that someone who didn't know them could even start to understand it.
But those were just the tip of the iceberg.
Because when Dave was so hurt by Bastard, somehow Blaine and Kurt separately and simultaneously realized that they couldn't encourage him to try again. They couldn't talk to him about the next boy he'd meet, the one smart enough to appreciate him, the one he'd really love. They couldn't, because neither of them wanted to see it happen.
Back then Dave had become utterly fascinating to Kurt – this strong and blunt and bashful boy who was gay in a way Kurt foolishly didn't realize someone could be gay. He was just himself, a coarse jock with a temper, who happened to like guys.
Kurt had always been attracted to jocks, but was so scared of all the things he didn't know that he purposely went after unattainable versions of the type. He never thought Finn was anything but straight. If he thought Sam Evans could maybe like him a little, he got over it fast. Didn't stop him from thinking he was in love with either of them, if only for a little while.
They were safe, like boyband singers or teen dream actors were safe to a million girls too young to understand the love poems they wrote in tribute.
He watched Dave coming out, this straight-acting jock who was also gay. He watched the repercussions, the way that no one knew how to treat Dave anymore. The way it was different for Dave than it was for Kurt, because the people who liked Kurt liked him just as much once he came out. Same with the people who hated him. But for Dave it was the opposite. For Dave his friends didn't like this thing he suddenly was, and the people who don't care about sexuality didn't like Dave enough to welcome him in.
Kurt watched Dave deal with his sudden and almost total alienation with resignation, like he'd predicted the whole thing. Coming out wasn't the big answer for Dave that it had been for Kurt. It didn't make Dave happier.
Kurt wanted Dave to be happy. He wanted to see those glimpses of the new Dave he had been with Bastard Boy. He wanted to see him smile. He wanted to make him smile.
And Blaine? Blaine just openly adored him.
Kurt couldn't tell anyone when they made the change from a pair of boyfriends and their third wheel into something more. He couldn't explain because they simply did: he and Blaine were a couple until the moment they realized that it felt better when they were a trio. The moment they went out to dinner on a Friday night like any other couple and realized that they were bored without Dave there with them.
Kurt and Blaine on their own would have fizzled eventually into dullness and apathy. Sitting across from Blaine was too much like staring into a mirror. He never stopped loving Blaine. He never loved him any less. He just realized that he and Blaine together were incomplete, and the moment he understood who completed them, he wasn't satisfied being incomplete anymore.
Luckily, Blaine awkwardly started bringing up Dave more and more even as Kurt was working that out in his head, and over the course of a few stilted, blushing conversations they tiptoed around the issue until they realized they were talking about the exact same thing.
No one who met Dave now would have recognized him in Kurt's memories of the day they finally confronted their growing feelings.
He and Blaine approached Dave one day when Dave was too depressed for them to tolerate any longer. Kurt spoke gently to him and kissed him until Dave pulled away and looked right at Blaine, and didn't understand why Blaine wasn't pissed about the kiss. Until Blaine kissed him too.
It was an option, they explained to Dave. For him, because he wasn't happy as lonely as he was, and they weren't happy without him. And no one who knew Dave would have believed he was ever so overcome, so awed and scared and timid as he was that day.
Most people didn't believe in real love existing between more than two people. It didn't fit the romantic notion that there was someone in the world for everyone, one true love who would rise above the rest. They assumed that Kurt loved Blaine but thought Dave was hot enough to sleep with. Or that Dave loved Kurt since the beginning and tolerated Blaine because Kurt didn't give him any option.
It didn't make sense to people that they came together so naturally. That three teenage boys who shouldn't have understood anything about real life found that huge, complicated thing and somehow made it work.
Dave started coming with them to dinner on date nights, that was the first big change. When Kurt wanted a kiss he could get it from Blaine, or he could turn to Dave. When Blaine wanted to talk about the Denver Broncos he suddenly had an eager partner. When Kurt wanted to be wrapped up and held and enfolded until he felt positively safe, suddenly there were strong arms he could step into.
When Kurt made Dave smile, it felt like nothing but singing on a stage in a closed Broadway theatre had ever made him feel before. When Blaine had the slightest moment of uncertainty or worry or fear he immediately looked around for Dave, and felt relief the moment he saw him.
Winning Dave's smiles and nods and approval became addictive. Normal people might have assumed that the more they were together the less vital it would be to make Dave laugh, but in Kurt's experience the opposite was true.
They grew into their roles before they realized there were roles there. Kurt and Blaine simply couldn't stop looking to Dave, trusting him to watch out for them, hoping for his approval, his smiles, his happiness. Dave grew more and more protective of them, more watchful. He seemed to realize that for Kurt and Blaine just his smile was a reward, and that realization seemed to do more to turn him into the confident man he became that anything else. He fed off of their adoration until there wasn't a trace of that tense, scared and insecure teenage bully left in him.
Dave loved them, he explained to Kurt once, one of a million murmured conversations in the heated exhaustion of their bed. He loved them, they were the most amazing creatures in the world in his eyes, and for them to look at him like hewas their strength? He must've been pretty fucking awesome himself.
Kurt loved what they had. He didn't love the misery of Dave's time in the closet, or that Blaine had to be threatened and shoved to his knees by soulless bastards in order for him to see Dave in a new way. He didn't love Blaine's dad refusing to let him come home when he found out about his son's non-standard relationship.
He didn't love some of the rocks that got in their path. But if they had to go through it to get where they were, he would have done it all again gladly. He loved what they were, what they had. He loved Dave's office and he and Blaine's tiny homemade dance studio. He loved the baffled looks the actors in the company gave he and Blaine when they couldn't figure out what their deal was.
He loved that Dave grew into a man so full of his own confidence and strength that without saying a word he could step into a room and stop conversations dead in their tracks. He loved that Dave became the man Kurt and Blaine saw under the scared boy. He loved that he and Blaine belonged to Dave, in such a deep and complex way that he couldn't find the words to even begin to describe it to another person.
He loved Dave. He loved Blaine. He adored Dave when watched Blaine with that steel in his eyes that dared the universe to try to hurt his boy again. He adored Blaine when he was wide open and vulnerable and trusting in Dave to take on whatever was burdening him.
Kurt saw Blaine with Dave and there was suddenly nothing dull or predictable about him. Blaine claimed that Kurt was never as beautiful as when he watched Dave. Dave said that when the two of them kisses he knew there wasn't a more perfect sight in the universe.
It was too intrinsic to explain in words. They loved each other with each other. Blaine was perfect for Kurt when Dave was there, and however you moved around their names to rephrase that sentence it always fit. It was always true. Their relationships were different - Kurt and Blaine related to each other in very different ways than either related to Dave. But they were Dave's boys.
It wasn't about dominance, not in some fetishistic porn sense. They didn't belong to Dave because he fit them into collars and made them call him 'sir'. They belonged to him because no matter how much they loved each other, neither of them were happy until Dave was there to lay his claim. Because they would have given anything to make him happy.
The closing performance of a beautiful musical was exciting, but it paled next to the moment they found out that Dave didn't get held up with work like he feared, that he was sitting there watching, that he had come backstage with two tiny roses that made the wild bouquets around them seem utterly absurd.
Kurt and Blaine adored theatre and were rightfully proud of how far they had come in it. They were performers, singers and actors. It was where they belonged and what they were meant for...until the moment that Dave was there, smiling and telling them how proud he was of them.
In that moment, theatre was just the means, and Dave was the end. The three of them together, what they were and what they had...that was the end.
The mind-blowing sex didn't hurt, of course.
Kurt was never going to look for the words to explain that part to anyone. Outside of the bedroom he was still the same prissy guy that he was in high school. He wasn't about to share details of his sex life with anyone.
He wasn't gifted enough with words to paint the picture anyway.
If Colin, when he cornered Kurt backstage at the end of the show, had asked him to describe his nights with his two lovers, Kurt would have been at a loss. Even the previous night, clear and strong in his memory, would never have made the transition into words and speech.
Kurt and Blaine got home late, of course, since it was a performance night. They skipped the partying afterwards, since there was no shortage of opportunities to get drunk with that group of people.
They came in quietly - their schedules conflicted horribly with Dave's, and even on a Friday night Dave might have been asleep by then. He worked a nine-to-five, a complicated job that was technically called 'sales' but logistically involved Dave being a genius about pieces of lab equipment and bits of technology that he peddled to universities and development companies worldwide.
(Kurt teased him for earning a degree in Theoretical Physics but then turning into a salesman...he teased him up until Dave brought home the first of many five-figure commission checks. Dave's job, weird as it seemed to Kurt, allowed his boys to work silly part time jobs so that they had loads of time to give the theatre, and yet still live (and dress) in the designer manner to which Kurt's generous father allowed him to become accustomed.)
Dave worked hard, but though his boring workday schedule conflicted with Kurt and Blaine's in intolerable ways, they didn't complain much. They knew he did it for them, that Dave never had fancy tastes – except in lovers – and he didn't need elegant décor filling his house, or designer labels on his clothes.
But Kurt took foolish amounts of pride in the names on his clothes, and Blaine was absolutely in heaven decorating and redecorating the home they lived in, and Dave spoiled his boys ridiculously.
But he knew they were high-maintenance when he so happily claimed them for his own.
So when Kurt and Blaine got home late that night, they were as quiet as possible until Kurt saw the light coming from under the closed door of Dave's office.
And then things changed.
Dave worked too hard. On paper he was a salesman, but the things he sold were incredibly detailed, specific pieces of equipment that he had to know and understand forwards and backwards. He sold to scientists, doctors, professors. He needed his degree to do his job, and it involved hours and hours of research and study whenever something new came out.
He worked too hard already, and after a performance on a Friday night him still being awake wasn't a good sign.
Kurt took Blaine's arm and nodded at the door, the stream of light underneath.
Blaine's cheerful post-show smile faded instantly: Dave worked hard for his boys, but his boys were not the type to accept being spoiled passively. They let him work as hard as he could until it became too hard. Then they acted.
Kurt met Blaine's eyes and Blaine nodded, and they were on the same wavelength instantly.
They headed down the hallway of their silent, elegant home. Blaine smiled faintly at Kurt before breaking away and stepping into their bedroom, and Kurt went on to the office door alone.
He knocked lightly, but pushed the door open without waiting for an answer.
Dave, lit by the blue glow of his computer monitor, surrounded by manuals and thick, small-print textbooks, looked up in surprise.
"Hi," Kurt said with a small smile; he was worried, but smiling was inevitable when Dave's attention was on him.
"Is it..." Dave looked back at his monitor, squinting in at the top corner where the time was stamped. "Oh, Christ. It's after midnight."
"It is," Kurt answered delicately, moving across the dark carpet and around Dave's heavy wooden desk. (This was Blaine's favorite room to decorate after their bedroom, he told Kurt. He didn't get to be so unabashedly masculine in any other room.)
Dave sat back and rubbed his face with his hands. "Shit, I'm gonna sleep until noon tomorrow. How was the show?"
"Good," Kurt answered as he moved around behind Dave. His hands went to Dave's shoulders like magnets drawn to metal, and he instantly started probing for knots in his muscles. "Standing ovation, both acts."
"Mmm." Dave slumped back, sighing and tilting his head to give Kurt's hands more room. "Hate to say it, but this damned bio-contamination analyzer...I'm not anywhere near done with it yet. I don't know if...fuck, Kurt, your fucking hands..."
Kurt glowed in pleasure, shivered at the gruffness of Dave's voice, and dug his fingers in to those amazing broad shoulders. "You've seen lots of our shows, it's okay if you miss this one." He didn't even try to hide his disappointment, though, selfish as it was.
"Sorry," Dave said simply, and Kurt knew the battle was lost.
He stilled his hands on Dave's shoulders. "If you'll be studying all day tomorrow than maybe you can stop tonight."
Dave looked back at him, tired but smiling. "Maybe. Where's Blaine?"
"He's getting ready for bed." Kurt dropped his eyes, consciously dipping his head and speaking more softly. "We're tired."
"Oh yeah?" Dave chuckled, his usual low rumble. "So why didn't you go to bed too?"
Kurt smiled to himself but kept his eyes down. "You know why."
"Mmm. You want to get tucked in?" Dave turned the chair, sitting back and studying Kurt with a suddenly weighted gaze. "You want a bedtime story?"
Kurt shook his head, edging in closer until his legs brushed against Dave's knees. "We're tired of being without you," he said, soft and bashful.
It wasn't an act, really, when Kurt got like that. He played it up a little, at least at the start when he was conscious of the change coming. But it wasn't artificial. His adoration of Dave was completely real, his strange humility when it came to asking Dave for anything after Dave already gave so much was genuine.
And Dave loved it, Dave fed off of it. That only made it all the more easy.
Dave, Kurt sometimes realized, never needed anything more than for someone to have absolute faith in him. That was what he was missing as a teenager. It was the easiest thing in the world for Kurt and Blaine to give him.
Dave sat up, a smile curling at his mouth. "Can't sleep without me there, huh?"
Kurt slid in, nudging timidly at his legs. "Don't want to. We will if you tell us to," he added, looking up at Dave through his eyelashes. "If it's what you want, but..."
Dave rumbled in another soft chuckle and reached out, his heavy palm fitting around Kurt's hip. "You without me is never what I want, beautiful."
Kurt pinked in pleasure and stroked his fingertips up Dave's outstretched arm. "Come to bed, then?"
It was a question – always a question. Kurt was a demanding little beast at the best of times, but Dave ruled in that house, with them. It wasn't incredibly hard to get Dave to make the decisions Kurt wanted him to make, but his manipulation was open and obvious and Dave enjoyed it as much as Kurt enjoyed getting what he wanted.
Dave hesitated, though Kurt already knew what the answer was. From the moment Kurt stepped through the door Dave hadn't given a single thought to the work behind him, and they both knew it.
"I guess I'd better," Dave answered finally. "Not fair to leave Blaine all alone, is it?"
Kurt grinned – he had read the glance Blaine shot him as clearly as if Blaine had spoken words, and he knew that Blaine was too busy getting ready to be lonely.
Dave tugged Kurt in. "First. Why don't you tell me hello for real, beautiful?"
Kurt's mind was off Blaine instantly. He lifted his eyes and met Dave's twinkling gaze and the silent thread that so inescapably bound him to Dave tugged him harder than Dave could.
He slid in between Dave's legs and shivered happily as Dave's hand slipped from his waist down to his ass, urging him closer. He leaned down, sliding his hands to Dave's shoulders as he bent towards Dave's smiling face.
The kiss was gentle, easy. Deceptive. Dave let their mouths meet, press, nudge together, and then he drew back. His tongue swept over his lower lip, as if tasting any hint Kurt might have left behind. His eyes were already darker, glittering, as he looked up at Kurt.
Kurt watched that glimpse of tongue with an instant and intense rush of hunger. "Bed time," he reminded Dave softly, and his voice shook from the effort of not asking for the thousand other things he wanted more than 'bed'.
Dave smiled lazily, entirely certain of all the things making Kurt's voice waver. He squeezed Kurt's ass as he stood up, trapping Kurt against him until they were pressed chest to chest. Dave wasn't hard but he was getting there, and his stirring cock pressed thick against Kurt's leg through two pairs of jeans.
Kurt's breath caught and his eyes lowered to Dave's collar. He wanted to arch, to rub himself into that wakening hardness until Dave was straining at his jeans and breathing hard in Kurt's ear. If he were feeling more forward he would have, though Dave just would have smirked and drawn back in response.
He wasn't feeling forward, though. He was feeling weighted, humbled. Reminded from the late hour and the exhaustion in Dave's eyes just how much Dave did for his boys while they were away on stage living their dreams.
On nights like that, Kurt's own desires were easily outweighed by a greater one: the desire to give his lover absolutely everything he wanted.
Dave leaned in, but stopped with his mouth an inch from Kurt's, still with that crooked smile on his face.
"Shouldn't leave Blaine waiting."
tbc