A/N: So. It's been a while since I've experimented with these two. Hope it turns out okay. If you have a few minutes, please enjoy! :)
It took him longer than the others to figure it out. Apparently, it had been quietly going on in full view for a while, but Kurt didn't realize Tasha and Allie were dating until he saw them kissing goodbye on the steps outside the Bureau building one Monday morning. Like an idiot, he'd stood there and stared. Like an even bigger idiot, he'd try to write it off. Maybe it was a kiss on the cheek or Maybe they just got really close recently or—
He was still staring when Tasha brushed passed him, characteristic smirk on her face and famous eyeroll already going as she knocked into his shoulder.
"Don't be such a perv, Weller," she whispered before pushing one of the doors open and stepping inside without a look back. He stared after her, slack-jawed, and then he turned to look back at Allie, but she'd already gone.
He did his best to push it from his mind—he had more important puzzles to sort out, after all—but by lunchtime it was still bothering him, and Jane had to say his name four times before he even looked over at her.
"What?" he asked, too loud, causing other people in the cafeteria to turn and look at them.
She frowned, pushing his food towards him. "You're not eating. And you look like somebody's holding your family ransom." She set her fork down, and tilted her head to try and catch his eye. "Something going on?" she pressed quietly. "Is Sarah or Sawyer—"
"No," he shook his head before she could even ask. "No, it's not…" He closed his eyes and blew out a breath. He figured, why not just ask? He glanced around to make sure no one was watching them still, and then he leaned a little closer to her over the table. "Do you know about Tasha and Allie?"
She blinked for a second, staring at him. "What do you mean?" she asked slowly.
"Well, do you know that they're—" He didn't know why his voice got suddenly hushed, but the next part came out in a whisper. "—together? Like,dating, together?"
She stared, and he held his breath. Was it really a revelation to her, too? Had he perhaps been the first to—
But then she burst out laughing.
"Oh, come on. Come on," she cried when he stared at her blankly. "How can you not know about this?"
He jerked his head back, staring at her. "How do you know about it?" he demanded. Had the entire world truly turned upside down? Since when did Jane find things out before him? Since when was she in any way more up-to-date than him?
She shook her head at his indignation. "Honestly, special agent," she grinned, turning back to her food, "you should really think about going into a different line of work. You're losing your touch."
He muttered under his breath at that, looking away crossly, and did his best to put the issue from his mind. It didn't work so well. By the time they got off work around six, it was still in forefront of his mind, and he actually hung around until Tasha left work, just to see if Allie came by to pick her up. She didn't.
The next day, he loitered in the lobby until Zapata arrived, but again there was no Allie with her. If he hadn't talked to Jane about it yesterday, he might've thought he'd made it all up. Even with talking to Jane, he thought maybe he'd made it all up. She wasn't exactly the most reliable source on these things.
But then when he went to the cafeteria for lunch Wednesday, there Allie was, sitting across from Zapata, eating lunch as he'd seen them do a thousand times before. He was grateful, for the moment, that the room was crowded. He watched them from the doorway, trying to gauge what exactly was going on. He'd seen them like this before—Tasha and Allie were old friends, and whenever their schedules lined up, Allie would usually stop by every other week or so to have lunch at the Bureau. Long before Kurt ever started dating her, she'd been hanging out with Zapata. Tasha was actually the only reason she and Kurt had ever met.
And now they were dating. Apparently.
Kurt felt a frown turn down his mouth as he stared at them. He just couldn't make sense of it. He'd known Allie and Tasha both for over seven years, and in all that time he'd never known them to be anything except straight. He'd dated Allie himself, for God's sake, and no one had a better record of running through men without a care than Zapata. Was this some sort of revelation on both their parts? Had they each had some sort of near-death experience that had changed the entire way they looked at the world? When had they decided they were sick of men, or sick of being just best friends? When—
"You're turning into a stalker, Kurt. Am I really going to have to arrest you in your own workplace?"
"Jesus," he swore, spinning around to find Jane standing behind him. "Don't sneak up on a person like that, Jane!"
"I wouldn't have to if you'd keep your head on straight." She leveled him with a flat stare. "I'm being serious, Kurt. You're acting really weird about this. You've been obsessed with them for days. Do I have to be worried?"
"Worried?" He laughed. "What do you think I'm going to do, go up and ask them if they want to have a threesome?"
Her eyes widened and she pulled her head back. "Wow, okay, that's not at allwhere I was going with that." She crossed her arms. "But clearly it's where I should've been going. Do we need to have a talk about sexual boundaries now? Because, you know, when you're living with someone, typically you don't go around sleeping with—"
"No, Jesus! Jane, will you just stop?"
"Sure, as soon as you stop being so insane about the fact that Allie and Tasha are dating. I don't get why you're so fixated on this. It's been going on for a while, you know. This isn't like a little fling."
"No, I know," Kurt muttered, glancing back at them, even though he didn't know, not really. Going on for a while? How long was a while? Months? Years? He thought of Allie's family upstate, her parents and all those sisters… Had Allie come out to her family? Was it really that serious? What about Tasha?
"I just… I don't understand it. I don't know." He reached up a hand, rubbing at the back of his neck as he turned back to Jane. "I can't wrap my head around it."
"Well… You do know that there's this magical thing called talking, right? It's where you open your mouth and you tell someone what you're thinking, and they respond. And believe it or not," she continued, raising her voice over his sharp Shut up, "you can talk to anyone you want. That's the beauty of it. You can talk to Tasha, you can talk to Allie." She laughed, throwing up her hands, "I mean, Christ, Kurt, you can talk to God if you're having such a crisis over this. I know Sarah would be very happy to see you at church on Sundays."
"It's not a crisis," he muttered. "It's just…" At her raised eyebrows, he sighed. "It's just a surprise, is all. I didn't expect… I don't know. I mean, we dated for a year and a half, Allie and I. And Tasha… I've never seen her even look twice at a woman in—you know—that way."
Jane shrugged. "People change."
He scoffed. "It's as simple as that to you, is it?"
"Yes, actually. And it should be that simple to you, too." She tipped her chin towards the cafeteria. "C'mon. If you lurk here any longer, all the food will be gone, and I need to eat."
He tried not to be so obvious with his curiosity after that. He kept himself strictly professional with Zapata, only talking to her about work-related things, and when he happened to catch sight of Allie with her, he quickly got himself out of the way so he wouldn't stare again, and get caught. He didn't mention it anymore to Jane, and he figured, like most things in his life, that Tasha and Allie's relationship—whatever it was—would just be another mystery he'd be forced to live with, with no explanation in sight.
On Friday, though, he was offered one: in the form of a phone call from Allie. He was just finishing up with work in his office—somehow the paperwork always piled upon Fridays—and he was sorting through the last of his inbox when his phone vibrated on his desk. He answered it without thinking, expecting it to be Jane. Usually when he stayed late, she called to check in about when he'd be home, so she could order food to be delivered at the right time, or, if she was feeling particularly confident, she could find out when she should start making dinner.
But when he answered, it wasn't his girlfriend on the other line, it was Allie.
"Hey." He stopped when he was doing and focused on the call. It wasn't exactly common for her to reach out for him. They'd parted ways rather sourly, over Jane, and though that had been a good two years ago now, they still didn't really talk too much. "Something up, A?"
"Yeah," she answered, and he could tell from the background noise that she was outside, walking somewhere. Sounded like downtown. "Jane called me just a couple minutes ago."
He froze. "Jane called you?"
"Yep. She said you're being a nutcase about me and Zapata. Asked my advice on how to beat some sense into you."
He closed his eyes. Fucking hell. If Jane hadn't already left an hour ago, he would hang up the phone and go yell at her. She might be his girlfriend, but that didn't mean she was allowed to go around talking about him, for him, like this. He tightened his grip on the phone and pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand. Sometimes he thought that ZIP wiped away her common sense along with her memory.
"Ignore her, please," he told Allie through gritted teeth. "She doesn't know what she's talking about. She's just being—"
"She's being smart, is what she's being," Allie answered for him, and for a second, he just blinked, not sure he'd heard her right. "Jane knows how you like to let things stew inside you and fester instead of finding help, and after that Taylor Shaw madness, she realized it'd be best to nip this one in the bud." Before Kurt could get a word in, she added, "Also, she called the right person. Because if she'd asked Zapata to talk to you about her love life, you'd spend an evening getting cursed out. You might take a few punches, too."
"And… if I asked you about it?" He couldn't help himself. The curiosity was too great.
"If you asked me, I'd guess I'd say… Fine. I mean, what harm can it do, right?" And before they could even speculate on that point, she added, "Meet me at Ruby's in a half-hour?"
He barely had time to accept before she hung up. Quickly, he sorted through the rest of the paperwork, and then grabbed a cab outside the office.
Allie was already waiting for him when he stepped inside the bar, and when he sat down across from her at table in the back, there was a whiskey waiting for him, too.
"Thanks," he said, and swallowed half of it in one go. Then he looked up at her and decided to swallow the rest, too. On the cab ride over here, he'd tried to get all his questions straight in his head. He'd tried to figure out how to make this as painless as possible. But now, sitting here across from Allie, it felt like an interrogation. When the bartender glanced their way, he motioned for another.
After it was brought, Allie shifted back in her seat, and crossed her arms. "So? What's all this about, then?"
He shrugged. "You tell me. Since when have you and Zapata been…?" He wasn't sure what to call it. Jane had said it wasn't a fling, but he didn't know if they were girlfriends. Girlfriends. Even the thought sounded foreign in his head, like a joke.
"About eight months," Allie replied, and Kurt nearly choked on his drink. Without blinking and without having to be asked, she continued, "We kept it under wraps for a while. Tasha was… Well, we were both kind of anxious about it, to tell you the truth. Not like either of us really has much experience in these waters. I guess you could stay we started being more overt about our relationship about two months ago."
"Two months?" God, he was blind.
Allie nodded. "Yeah, um…" She cleared her throat, glancing away. "I guess we have your girlfriend to thank for that, actually."
Kurt frowned. "Jane? What does she have to do with—"
"She might've walked in on us once," Allie explained quickly. "Or maybe twice. Regardless, she was the first one that knew. We asked her to keep it to herself…" She smiled a bit, turning back to him. "I guess she did her job a lot better than expected. Honestly, I assumed she'd spill the beans the second she saw you after that, but she proved herself. I should probably send her a thank-you card, come to think of it. Tasha would've had a nervous breakdown if people had found out back then."
Kurt was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Jane had been lying to him for months on end, but Allie plowed right ahead.
"So what is it?" she asked, sitting up. "What do you want to know, Kurt? Who made the first move? Who sleeps on what side of the bed? You wanna know if Zapata's better at giving head than you were?"
"Christ, A!"
"What?" Allie shrugged. "Jane said you were weirdly interested in our sex life."
"I'm gonna kill her," he muttered, and Allie laughed. "And I'm not weirdly interested!" he added defensively. "I'm just…" He sighed. "I guess it's surprising is all. And it's been making me think…" He screwed his eyes shut, and then forced them open, finding what little courage he had in these types of personal situations. He already knew this would probably be the last time he ever spoke to Allie in detail about this. Why not put it all out there? "Look, I guess what I want to ask is, it wasn't, uh—me—was it? It wasn't my fault you're… I mean, that you and Zapata are…"
She laughed, shaking her head. "God, Kurt," sighed, sitting back in her seat. "You really do like making things all about you, don't you?"
She took another swallow of her drink, and he suddenly wished himself invisible—or better yet, completely nonexistent—but when she looked back over at him, her expression wasn't angry.
"There isn't exactly an on/off switch in these situations, you know," she pointed out. "I didn't give up on the entirety of the male sex just because you and I didn't have the best go of it."
"No, I know," he hurried to say. "And I didn't mean to make it about me." He shot her an apologetic look. "What I meant to say—what I really want to know, I guess—is, did I make you that unhappy when we were together? I know everything with Jane…" He glanced away. He still felt guilty about all that, when he allowed himself to think about it. "Look, I know everything with Jane was… not great, but—"
"'Not great,'" Allison laughed hollowly. "Wow, you really do know how to describe a situation, Kurt. This conversation just keeps getting better and better."
"Look," he muttered, biting back a sigh. "I know I was an asshole, okay? I just…" He ran a hand through his hair and clutched at the back of his neck. "God, A, I really hope I wasn't so big an asshole that I made you question your entire life."
"My sexuality isn't my entire life, Kurt."
"No, I know, but—"
"I understand that things are black and white to you. That either you like men or you like women, and that's just how you are, and it's something that you know eight away. It's something that doesn't change. It was like that for me, too, before. But…" She shrugged, looking down at her drink. Kurt watched a little smile pull at the edges of her mouth. "I don't know, things are different with Tasha. It's not so much… about that she's a woman. I mean, I'm not trying to make this big statement by dating her—though I do realize, to you at least, that's what it seems like. I just—I mean, I love her. I've always loved her; she's been my best friend since we were twenty years old. And being with her now is just… I don't know. An evolution of that, maybe? It's taking that love in a different, more…concrete direction? More permanent, certainly."
"Permanent?" he glanced up.
She smiled a little. "We've, um, been talking about moving in together recently. Now that everyone knows and everything… I mean, we basically already live together. Why not make it official?"
"And then what?"
She shrugged. "Then we'll live together, I guess. If we find a place we like."
Kurt nodded, deciding not to push her any further. She'd divulged enough of her personal life tonight. For a couple minutes, they sat in silence and observed the bar around them, nursing their drinks. Then, just as they were getting to the dregs, he cleared his throat.
"So it's, uh, really serious, then? You and Tasha?"
"I don't know." Allie watched him. "Are you and Jane really serious?"
He nodded at the retaliation, figuring it was only fair.
"Well, that's good," he said finally. "I know Tasha hasn't had anything too serious in a while and…" He glanced away. He felt weird talking about this. Like he was a trespasser. "It's just good to see," he finished finally. "I'm glad you guys are happy."
"Thanks."
It was quiet for a minute. The bar around them filled the silence with talk and laughter and the clinking of glasses. He wondered about Jane at home, and what she was doing. And then he wondered if Allie was thinking the same about Tasha.
"And hey…"
He glanced up when Allie spoke. "Yeah?" he asked when she hesitated.
"About you and me, I just wanted to say… Look, me being with Tasha is in no way some sort of elaborate 'Fuck you' aimed in your direction."
"No, Allie, I know—"
"I don't regret being with you, okay? You were what I needed at a certain point in my life, and I'm happy we were together. Obviously it got shitty near the end there, but if I'm being honest, I didn't try my hardest to make it work, and we both know you certainly didn't, either. But…" She smiled a little bit, shrugging her shoulders. "But it all worked out, right? We both found someone that we just fit better with, didn't we?"
He nodded, smiling a little too. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess we did." He liked that way of putting it.
She swallowed the last few sips of her drink, then set the empty glass on the table. "Just for the record, you're still an asshole, though."
He laughed. "Yeah, I know. Guilty as charged."
"How is she, by the way?"
"Good. Fine." He smiled at the thought of Jane, then frowned. "She's in trouble is what she is," he muttered a second later, finishing off the last of his drink, too. "I can't believe she lied to me about this."
Allie snorted. "Kurt."
"What? She did!"
"Lies of omission—"
"—are the same as regular lies, A, you of all people have to agree with that," he finished for her.
She held up her hands. "Fine, fine. Back me into a corner." She looked away then, back out into the bar. He watched her a moment, seeing a smile flicker across her face. He thought she was probably thinking about Tasha, but when she turned back to look at him, her smile only widened.
"So…?"
He blinked when she didn't elaborate. "So.. What?" he wondered, his forehead creasing in confusion.
"You and Jane…," she elaborated in a sing-song-y voice, which wasn't much of an elaboration at all.
"Me and Jane what?" he repeated blankly.
"Oh, my God," she groaned, tipping her head back against the booth. "Do I have to spell it out? Really?"
Kurt shifted in his seat, uncomfortable now. He really did not like being out of the loop on things these days. "Allie, I don't know what you're getting at—"
"When are you going to pop the question, Kurt, that's what I'm getting at."
A bomb could've gone off just then, and he likely wouldn't have noticed. Wouldn't have felt it. Wouldn't have even heard it.
"What…" He tried to breathe normally, but such a thing didn't seem possible right now. He couldn't form words. All he could do was stare at Allie, speechless, while she laughed in his face.
"Man, Jane was was right. You are clueless."
The mention of her by name jolted him back into speech. "Wait. Wait, please tell me she didn't talk to you about—"
"No, Jesus, calm down," Allie waved a hand. "She didn't say a word. But I just figured, you know…" She shrugged. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"
He stared at her. "It's been two years, A. Two years. I'm not dropping to one knee. Are you insane?"
"All right, fine." She held up her hands. "Forget I asked."
"Yeah, fat chance of that," he muttered, rubbing a hand over his face tiredly. "God," he groaned. "Like I needed something else to worry about."
"Oh, don't be such a drama queen. It'll sort itself out."
"Maybe, but not before crushing me with anxiety first."
She laughed. "I think you'll make it alive. And hey," she added when he surfaced, "if you wait long enough, maybe we can race." She grinned at the confusion on his face. "I bet I can beat you to the altar, special agent."
He laughed. "With that attitude, yeah, I bet you can. Good luck getting Tasha into a white dress, though. Something tells me she doesn't seem like the type."
"Hey, speak for your own," Allie grinned. "Good luck getting Jane to marry you in anything except a tank top and jeans."
A/N: Thank you for reading! :)