This is (once again, just because I love writing them) an AU story. It takes place sometime in January of Season 2. Basically, Kurt and Blaine really are just friends, and neither of them harbors any sort of secret feelings for the other.
Apparently, I can't write a story without putting some reference to FRIENDS in it. It's just too much fun. If you spot one (there's one quote and one vague reference) then you get a virtual fist bump. The title is from the Lindsay Lohan song Ultimate (say what you will about her, but that song is so catchy I can't help but like it).
Warnings: Kurt likes to swear. Blaine doesn't, but Kurt does it enough for the both of them.
I don't own Glee, FRIENDS, or Lindsay Lohan's catchy music.
As soon as Kurt heard the click of his dorm room door closing, he breathed a sigh of relief. Three tests and an extra-long Warblers practice had left him exhausted and desperate for sleep, but he hadn't managed to get to his room to until just before curfew.
He glanced at the clock. If he did just the bare minimum of his moisturizing routine, he reasoned, he would be able to get to bed within an hour. So with that encouraging thought in mind, he headed for the tiny private bathroom (which every Dalton dorm room possessed, to Kurt's pleasure) and began to prepare for bed.
Forty-five minutes later, he sunk back into his pile of pillows (brought from home, of course, along with his sheets—he wasn't going to settle for the cheap, standard pillow and sheet set that Dalton issued each of its boarding students) and finally closed his eyes.
He opened them again, however, just a few minutes later, when his door creaked open. Sitting up slightly and glaring fiercely into the light streaming in from the hallway, Kurt prepared to let loose on whomever it was that dared disturb his slumber. He swore, if it was Blaine bugging him about not being able to sleep and being bored again, he was going to cut a bitch.
His expression softened, though, when he saw that it was his roommate, Joey, standing with his hands raised in surrender and looking terrified.
"Sorry," Joey whispered frantically. "I got held up and couldn't get back until now and please don't kill me—"
Kurt sighed, interrupting Joey's pleas for mercy.
"It's okay," he said, feeling a little bit guilty about how scared his roommate looked.
Ordinarily, they got along very well. Joey was very, very straight (Kurt knew this firsthand, no matter how much he tried to erase the memory of catching Joey and his girlfriend making out—on Kurt's bed—from his mind), but appreciated Broadway almost as much as Kurt himself, and was always willing to watch musicals live on YouTube or help him rehearse for Warblers practice. Joey wasn't in the Warblers himself, but he had a pretty good voice, and Kurt really liked him as a friend.
Kurt had also become very good friends with Joey's girlfriend, once he had recovered from that one scarring incident. He was doing better than he had expected to at making friends at Dalton, and had managed to find several girl friends in his classmates' visiting girlfriends.
It had only taken a couple weeks, however, for Joey to learn that he should never, ever, disturb Kurt's beauty sleep. As pleasant as Kurt was during the daytime, he was always ready to verbally slaughter anybody who woke him up before he was ready—even Blaine, and everybody knew that Kurt was at his absolute nicest when around Blaine.
"It's okay," Kurt repeated, when Joey still looked slightly on edge as he carefully tiptoed toward his own bed. "I just had a really long day, and I wanted to go to bed early. You did miss curfew, though. You're lucky that Trent hasn't gotten around to checking our hall yet."
"I know," Joey admitted as he kicked off his shoes and unbuttoned his blazer before getting into bed. How that boy managed to sleep in dirty clothes, especially the Dalton uniform, was completely beyond Kurt. "I went to Katrina's house after classes, and I couldn't leave when I was supposed to because something I said made her cry."
Kurt groaned, but sat up, now too fully awake to just fall back asleep.
"What did you say?" he asked in despair. Joey was his friend, and he was an amazingly sweet boyfriend to Katrina, but sometimes he could be really clueless.
"Well…" Joey scrunched up his eyebrows in concentration. "She asked me if I wanted to do anything special next Tuesday, and I asked why."
"Joey!" Kurt gasped, scandalized. "Don't you even remember what next Tuesday is?"
"Um. No?" Joey asked, looking scared again. Kurt fell back into his pillows with a groan.
"Next Tuesday is the one-year anniversary of when you two lost your virginities together," Kurt explained patiently.
"What the hell, man?" Joey yelped. "How do you know that?"
Kurt waved his hand dismissively.
"She tells me everything about you guys," he explained. "Anyway," he continued, ignoring Joey's horrified cry, "You have to fix this. You need to take her out somewhere really nice, and make sure you say something romantic about how that was the best night of your life, but only say what you'll really mean because she can tell if you don't mean it. Then take her somewhere private that is anywhere but our room and do… whatever it is you guys do that I try not to think about."
Kurt looked back at Joey, who was staring at him with wide eyes, as he finished his tirade.
"Whatever you do," Kurt said firmly, "Do not tell her that you forgot. Tell her that you wanted to surprise her."
"Oh my God," Joey said in awe. "How do you know all this?"
Kurt sighed.
"Years of being surrounded by girl best friends and watching their relationships crash and burn because their respective boyfriends screwed up in ways not dissimilar to this," he explained. "But you guys will be fine. You've been together way longer than all but one of the couples in my old Glee club."
"Thank you, Kurt," he said reverently. He paused, then spoke again, asking, "Does Katrina really tell you everything?"
Kurt raised his eyebrow at him, and responded, "Well, I know about that time at her parents' anniversary party when you—"
"Ok!" Joey cut him off quickly. "I get it. I mean, I guess you'd tell your girl friends if something happened with you and Blaine, right?"
Shocked, Kurt choked slightly and coughed.
"What about me and Blaine?" he asked.
Joey shrugged.
"You know, if you guys ever got together," he said.
"Joey," Kurt said, still sounding a little surprised. "Blaine is my best friend, but we're not going to go out or anything."
"Really?" Joey said, now sounding genuinely surprised himself. "But you guys are always together, we all kind of figured…"
Kurt laughed slightly.
"No," he said. "I mean, he's amazing, and we're really good friends. But no, nothing's happening there."
"Oh," Joey said, apparently deciding to let the matter drop. "Hey, I'm really sorry I woke you up, and I'm kind of keeping you awake now… but I have to get up pretty early tomorrow. I'll try to be quiet."
"Okay," Kurt agreed, though they both knew that he would not be nearly as agreeable is actually woken the next morning. "Why do you need to go early?"
Joey yawned.
"There's a new kid coming tomorrow, and I have to show him around," he explained. "Anyway, I'm going to go to sleep now. Goodnight."
"Goodnight," Kurt replied, before turning over and finally succumbing to sleep.
A sudden shock of cold, combined with a loud voice in his ear, jerked Blaine awake. He yelped and grabbed desperately for the blanket that had been yanked off away from his body, only to reach too far and crash to the floor.
"David!" he yelled, sitting up and kicking at his roommate, who was trying and failing to contain his laughter. "It's not funny!"
"Well, sorry," David said, obviously not sorry at all. "But you're really, really hard to wake up, and this method has proved the most effective. It's not my fault that half the times I do it you fall out of bed."
Blaine groaned and pulled himself up off the floor.
"You could do it more nicely," he grumbled. "Like, I don't know, gently shaking me and telling me quietly that it's time to get up, like a normal person would?"
David raised his eyebrows.
"I would do that, if you would actually wake up to that like a normal person would. You're lucky that you have such a devoted roommate that's willing to take verbal abuse every morning just so you won't be late for class."
Blaine, knowing that David's statement was correct, just grumbled again.
"Especially when said roommate has to stay awake until ungodly hours of the night half the time because you can't sleep. Honestly, you couldn't have just bugged Kurt last night?" David continued.
Blaine sighed.
"I'm pretty sure that if I accidentally wake Kurt up one more time, he'll castrate me or something," Blaine explained. "And he looked tired last night at dinner."
David nodded, satisfied with this explanation and aware that Blaine's predictions about what lengths Kurt might go to for revenge were not all that far-fetched.
"Well, you should get ready," he said, glancing at the clock. "I, being a person with a reasonable sleep schedule, am already ready with fifteen minutes to spare. You, being an insomniac with crazy hair that takes forever to do, can't exactly say the same."
Blaine followed David's gaze towards his alarm clock, swore, and dashed for the bathroom.
When Kurt awoke, he smiled widely at the realization that Joey had managed to get out of the room without waking him, and Kurt had gotten plenty of sleep in time to wake up for class.
Hopping out of bed (Kurt was a surprisingly chipper morning person when he was allowed to wake up on his own terms), he glanced at his phone, confirmed that he had plenty of time to get ready, and went to take a shower.
When he emerged, he found that several texts had arrived for him while he was getting ready in the bathroom.
The first was from Blaine, reading: David just made me fall out of bed again :( I'll see you at breakfast, right?
The next was from David: I just woke Blaine up, but I'm going to the cafeteria now. You should probably go check on him and make sure he doesn't go back to sleep while I'm gone.
He had one more, from Joey: I'm bringing the new guy to breakfast… you'll want to meet him ;-)
Kurt decided to not even try to decipher what Joey's text meant. Instead, he sighed, picked up his bag, and walked to Blaine's room, which was down the hall from his.
He knocked on the door and received no response. Rolling his eyes, he opened it and was unsurprised to find Blaine, completely dressed and with his hair done, asleep on his bed again.
"Blaine!" Kurt yelled, poking his friend hard in the stomach. Blaine's eyes shot open as he squealed and fell down onto the ground. It was a really good thing that they had lowered Blaine's bed to just about a foot off the ground, Kurt thought as he leaned down to poke Blaine again.
"Oh my God, people need to stop doing that!" Blaine gasped as he picked himself up again.
"We would if you would actually wake up on time and stay awake without us constantly checking on you. You're the worst morning person ever," Kurt deadpanned.
"Sorry," Blaine said grumpily. "And I still need to do my hair."
"Well, do it quickly! I don't want to miss the coffee stand today!" Kurt responded as Blaine rooted around in his medicine cabinet for his gel.
A few minutes later, Blaine emerged, hair freshly gelled down to his head.
"Okay, I'm ready," Blaine panted.
"Took you long enough… come on, we have to get to breakfast now or we'll be late."
Blaine groaned in defeat and picked up his backpack before following Kurt out the door.
They arrived at the cafeteria so late that the coffee stand had in fact already closed up before their arrival, prompting a fierce glare at Blaine from Kurt. Kurt and Blaine had the uncanny ability to communicate pretty much exactly what they were thinking to each other with just a look, and Blaine knew what this one meant.
You made me miss my coffee. You are dead to me until you fix this.
Blaine shot back a guilty look that said: I'm sorry, I'll buy you a mocha at lunch. And another one after school. Every day for a week.
Kurt nodded, satisfied enough to be able to talk civilly with Blaine.
"Joey says there's a new kid coming today," he told Blaine as they ate their cereal. "He's bringing him to breakfast, so he'll be here soon."
"Maybe he's a spy," Blaine teased, winking at Kurt, who shoved him playfully as several more boys approached their table.
"Hey," Wes said to both of them, before turning to Kurt. "Kurt," he said nervously. "How much does Brooke tell you about us?"
Kurt smiled devilishly.
"You guys shouldn't be so surprised," he said. "Girls tell each other everything about their boyfriends, and I'm an honorary girl."
Blaine cleared his throat.
"Not that it affects me all that much," he said. "But everything?"
"You know, like stuff you like, stuff she likes, technique, stamina, girth..." Kurt said.
Wes's eyes widened at this.
"Girth? Why, why, why, wh-why, why, why, why would they do this?" he stuttered, sounding panicky.
Kurt laughed.
"It's fine, I don't repeat anything," he said soothingly. "And Wes, I'm sure that one… problem will go away soon."
Wes looked even more terrified as he asked, "You know I have a problem?"
"Well, I didn't," Kurt admitted. "But I do now."
He glanced at Blaine, who was wearing an expression that was a cross between horror and extreme amusement.
"You guys are so much fun to mess with," Kurt sighed happily. "Oh look, there's Joey!"
Joey approached the table with another boy in tow. They both stopped a few feet away, though, staring questioningly at Wes and Blaine's expressions.
"You really shouldn't have told Wes what I told you last night," Kurt explained. "Who's this?"
The boy behind Joey stepped out and held out his hand.
"Hi," he said politely. "I'm Taylor."
Kurt blinked.
Blaine's eyes widened, and then flickered to meet Kurt's.
He's so—
I know. Damn.
Kurt looked away from Blaine after a moment to reach out and shake Taylor's hand. As he withdrew it, he noticed Joey motioning to him and Blaine from behind Taylor's back.
He made sure that they were both looking at him and that Taylor's back was turned before silently mouthing, "He's gay," at them while jerking his head in Taylor's direction.
Once again, both Kurt and Blaine looked at Taylor, then immediately back to each other.
I saw him first.
You did not. I shook his hand first.
Like that means anything.
Suddenly, Kurt was standing and reaching out to grab Blaine's arm.
"It was great to meet you, Taylor," Kurt said, smiling. "But I really do have to talk to Blaine for a moment, so if you could excuse us?"
Without waiting for a response, he dragged Blaine away from the table, ignoring his protests.
After a beat of silence, Taylor asked, "What's with them?"
Wes sighed.
"Who knows; they're always doing stuff like that. We're pretty sure they're secretly in love or something," he replied.
"Ow! Kurt, stop it! Can you at least tell me where we're going?" Blaine cried, trying to jerk his arm out of Kurt's grip. Kurt finally stopped outside an empty classroom and shoved him in.
"Do not even think about it," he began, as Blaine recovered from the slight manhandling.
"What?" Blaine asked, far too innocently, rubbing his sore arm.
"You know what," Kurt snapped. "You can't go after Taylor."
Blaine scoffed before asking, "Why not? Who says you have any claim on him?"
Kurt crossed his arms in front of him and rolled his eyes.
"Blaine, Joey brought him to the table to introduce him to me. So I should get to be the one who gets to ask him out."
"That's not fair! Just because your roommate is on the welcoming committee, you get first dibs on all hot transfers?" Blaine cried.
Kurt shrugged and responded, "Yeah, pretty much. Blame David."
Blaine gaped at him.
"You can't be serious," he said. "We should each have an equal chance with him, so he can go out with whoever he wants. You know, on the off chance that he might actually like me more than you. I know it sounds impossible, but still."
Kurt glared at him for a minute before relenting.
"Fine," he said. "We both get to try to ask him out."
"Fine," Blaine agreed, sounding less annoyed but still very determined. "No cheating, though. No making up stuff about me to make me look bad."
"No bribing Joey to get him on your side," Kurt retaliated.
"No showing him any of the pictures of me you've got saved into your "Blackmail" folder on your computer."
"No singing."
"No—wait, what?" Blaine looked shocked at this rule.
"You heard me," Kurt said firmly. "No singing to him. Either of us. It's not a road we want to go down until he's going out with me."
"Or me," Blaine retorted angrily. "But fine."
"Fine."
"Fine," Blaine repeated. "And I'm not buying you any coffee."
At that, he left the classroom, ignoring Kurt's shocked and offended expression.
Blaine entered the cafeteria a few hours later for lunch to see Kurt sitting with a few of their friends and Taylor at a table near the back. Blaine made his way through the line to buy food (just barely remembering not to buy Kurt a mocha) before heading over towards the table, a fake smile on his face.
"Hi, Taylor," he said cheerfully as he sat down in the only available seat, which was next to Kurt. "Hello Wes, David, and Nick."
Kurt cleared his throat.
"And Kurt," Blaine finished with much less enthusiasm.
Wes, David, and Nick all exchanged confused glances.
"Hello, Blaine," Kurt said, sounding equally cheerful.
"Sorry I'm late, but you usually wait for me outside of Spanish. It would have been nice to warn me before you ditched me, but whatever," Blaine said politely.
"I'm sorry," Kurt said with a smile. "I wanted to show Taylor how to get to the cafeteria from our Calculus classroom. We have Calculus together, because we're both juniors. It's not my fault that you're younger than us."
Blaine shot him a look. Are you really going to go there?
Kurt raised his eyebrow in response. Bitch, you didn't get me coffee. I'll go wherever I want.
"Are they always like that?" Taylor whispered to Nick as the pair continued to glare at each other. "Are they, like, going out?"
Nick sighed heavily.
"They're Kurt and Blaine," he explained. "Nobody ever knows what the hell's going on with them. They are being weirder than usual today, though."
"So," Blaine said, prompting the boys to look up. "What school did you go to before this, Taylor?"
Taylor looked relieved that the conversation had regained some semblance of normalcy.
"I just moved here from Florida," he said. "I went to a private school there."
"That's cool," Blaine said. "I guess it's probably not snowing down there right now, is it?"
"No," Taylor laughed. "I'd never even seen snow before this week, actually."
"So you just moved up here?" Kurt interjected. "Why'd you move?"
"My dad's company transferred him here. It was kind of sudden, but Dalton was really good about letting me in mid-semester."
"I actually transferred here just a little while ago," Kurt told Taylor. "Are you planning to join any clubs? I'm in the Warblers with Wes and David and Nick-"
"And me," Blaine cut in. "We're the Dalton show choir. "
"I don't really sing very well," Taylor admitted. "I was thinking about checking out the athletic department here."
"Do you like football?" Blaine asked eagerly. Taylor nodded, grinning. "I love to watch football. We should watch a game together sometime."
"Of course," Kurt said. "I've actually played football, unlike you, Blaine."
"You played football?" Taylor asked Kurt.
"Well, he was also a cheerleader," Blaine said. Kurt glared at him.
"At least I'm tall enough to be on sports teams!" He turned to Taylor. "Last year I was the kicker for my school's team."
"Hey, Kurt," Blaine said, his eyes lighting up with evil glee. "Didn't you join football to get closer to that one guy you had a crush on?"
Kurt whipped to face Blaine, a murderous expression on his face.
Don't you dare. Don't you fucking dare.
The bell rang.
Blaine grinned at Kurt. I'm sure I can bring it up again later.
Kurt's expression was full of silent fury. You bitch.
"There's the bell," Blaine said. "Taylor, what class do you have next?"
"Um." Taylor was looking back and forth between the two boys, looking slightly unnerved. Blaine and Kurt, who were glaring fiercely at each other, didn't seem to notice. "Journalism?"
"Great," Blaine said, looking away from Kurt and smiling. "That's my next class too! I love to write. Kurt's not taking that, he's taking Drawing, so I'll just walk you there, okay?"
Taylor nodded nervously and followed Blaine out of the cafeteria. Kurt made a frustrated noise, stood abruptly, and walked the opposite way.
David, Wes, and Nick remained sitting in silent shock, the way they had been ever since the verbal sparring match had begun.
"What… the hell just happened?" David finally asked.
Wes shook his head.
"I'll bet it's sexual tension," he said.
That night, Kurt went to bed looking tense, irritated, and ready for sleep. He was just closing his eyes when Joey, who had been watching him from across the room, spoke.
"Kurt, why are you and Blaine even fighting?"
Kurt opened his eyes and turned to look at Joey.
"What? What makes you think we're fighting?" he asked with thinly veiled false innocence.
He keeps making me look bad in front of all of our friends, is that it?
"Maybe the fact that you spent all of today trading insults and wouldn't stop glaring at each other. You weren't exactly subtle."
"He certainly wasn't, when he made sure that everybody realized that I take too long on my hair and there's probably a hole in the ozone that I'm solely responsible for."
Because of my hair, I'm not good enough for Taylor. Blaine's so much better boyfriend material.
"Well, why are you guys suddenly so determined to find thing to insult each other about? Did something happen this morning?"
Kurt's mind flashed to that morning, when he had Blaine had seen Taylor and both decided that he was cute. Neither of them had really talked much to him since lunch; they'd been too busy with each other.
"That doesn't matter. What matters is that he doesn't think I'm good enough, obviously. I'm not good enough to be with anybody, and obviously he would reject me if he was in the position of a boy that I liked—"
"Wait," Joey cut him off. "Do you like Blaine?"
"No!" Kurt answered immediately. "That's not the point."
If I did like him, he would reject me. That's the point.
"So why does it matter if he thinks you're good enough to be with him?" Joey countered. "Honestly, Kurt, why does his opinion of your hair and your clothes matter more than, say, mine? Or David's? Or Jeff's?"
Kurt sighed.
"I don't know," he snapped. "Can I go to sleep now?"
Joey didn't answer, so Kurt turned over and closed his eyes, willing himself not to think too hard about this conversation.
The next morning, Blaine awoke to David yanking off his blankets again.
"Ugh," Blaine said crankily. "One second."
When he sat up a minute later, he saw David sitting on his own bed, staring at Blaine expectantly.
"What?" Blaine groaned.
"Blaine, what was up with you and Kurt yesterday?" David asked. He had obviously been waiting for the right time to ask this.
He thinks I'm not good enough to be Taylor's boyfriend. Or anyone's boyfriend, Blaine's mind admitted, but he wasn't about to tell David this.
"What do you mean?" Blaine asked stiffly, climbing out of bed.
David rolled his eyes.
"You guys spent the whole day exchanging thinly veiled insults and glaring like you wanted to rip each others throats out?"
"That seems like a bit of an exaggeration," Blaine mumbled. "Maybe he was being rude to me all day—"
Telling me and everyone else all day why I wasn't good enough to be someone's boyfriend—
"You were doing it to him too, weren't you?"
"Bu—He ditched me after class! And he made fun of my height." Blaine protested.
"And you spent the whole day holding the thing with his stepbrother over his head. Blaine, we all make fun of you for being short. What even started this?"
Blaine's mind went back to the previous day, when Kurt had dragged him in a classroom and told him he couldn't like Taylor.
"It doesn't even matter what started it!" Blaine exclaimed. "That's not even important anymore! I just can't believe he said all that stuff. Last night at dinner he asked me if doing my hair had gotten more expensive since oil prices went up, remember? And he kept threatening to tell everyone about my—"
He paused here.
"Your what?" David asked with great interest.
"Nothing," Blaine mumbled.
"But you told Kurt, right?" David countered.
"I—yeah, I guess." Blaine admitted.
"You don't have to tell me or anything, but see? Kurt's your best friend."
The best friend I ever had, actually, until he found all this stuff to hate about me.
"I never said he was my best friend," Blaine mumbled before going into the bathroom to change.
David looked after him, exasperated.
"Do you want me to wait until you're ready? Because you and Kurt are… whatever?"
Blaine's heart clenched at the realization that Kurt probably wasn't planning to come and check on him this morning.
Of course he's not coming. You found a lot of stuff to hate about him, too, didn't you?
"Yeah, okay," he muttered.
A half hour later, the two were just about to walk out the door when the handle turned. The door creaked open to reveal Kurt, looking slightly nervous.
"Oh," he said in surprise. "David, you're here. I was just going to check on…" he trailed off as he caught sight of Blaine behind David, then continued, "Blaine."
"Oh," David replied awkwardly. "Well, I'll leave you guys to it," he said hurriedly, then pushed out the door, leaving Blaine and Kurt behind.
"Um," Blaine coughed awkwardly. "I didn't know if—"
"Well," Kurt said, slightly defensively. "I know you have that test in Chemistry today, and that's your first period, and I didn't want you to fail or anything."
"Right," Blaine nodded. "Do you want to go to breakfast, then?"
I didn't mean what I said, you know. Did you mean all that, though?
Kurt wasn't looking at Blaine. He didn't get the message Blaine was so desperately trying to send him.
"Yeah, okay," Kurt replied, and they headed to the cafeteria together, awkwardly walking side-by-side but not talking.
When they reached their table, they saw that Wes, Jeff, Joey, and Taylor were occupying it.
They both greeted their friends before sitting down at opposite ends of the table. The rest of its occupants looked at one another in dismay.
Neither Kurt nor Blaine talked until the bell rang, and then they both just stood and went their separate ways without preamble.
Lunch went the same way. It was filled with only polite conversation and anxious glances shared between the two's friends as neither of them spoke or made eye contact with each other.
It was in the senior commons, after school that day, that everything exploded.
Kurt and Blaine were sitting at opposite ends of the room, studying with Nick and Joey, respectively. The room was filled with quiet talk as various students worked on their homework together, which was a popular use for the common room.
Then, one voice piped up above the others, speaking to Nick but obviously meant to be heard by the other side of the room.
"I probably shouldn't even bother practicing. I mean, I'm apparently so terrible at drawing people that I can't really call myself an art student."
Everybody's heads snapped up at that, then turned to look at Blaine, who was clenching his jaw and not looking up.
"Of course," he said loudly to Joey, who looked very apprehensive. "I'm such a people-pleaser that there's really no point in taking any form of position in my essay."
"Well, I obsess too much over everything I do being perfect, so this assignment could take me awhile, couldn't it," Kurt growled loudly. Nobody was really looking at his books anymore at this point.
"I don't even know why I'm in here working," Blaine shouted, now looking straight at Kurt. "I mean, I procrastinate so much that it makes more sense for me to be spending all afternoon wasting my time practicing singing cliché, meaningless music for Warblers practice."
"At least you don't drive everyone insane by blasting Lady Gaga all the time!" Kurt yelled back.
"I have no idea how to dress outside of uniform without over-accessorizing with stupid bowties, though, which is an insult to gay men everywhere!"
"I have no idea how to put together an outfit that doesn't take thirty minutes to just get on because of all the stupid buttons!"
"That's okay, your hair doesn't look like a briar patch when you don't do anything to it!"
At this, Kurt jumped up out of his seat and stalked over towards Blaine. Their yelling was attracting the attention of people passing by in the hallways, and now many people were watching them in alarmed bewilderment.
"But nobody would know, because I'm too much of a prima donna to let anybody but Joey see me without it done!" he shrieked.
"You don't smell like a gas station!" Blaine retorted in a furious shout, meeting him in the middle of the room.
"You're not going to be alone your whole life because you're too much of a high-maintenance bitch for anybody to actually want to be around you for more than an hour at a time!" Kurt screamed.
Blaine's livid expression dropped. The room went completely silent.
"I never said that," Blaine replied quietly.
"You may as well have!" Kurt retorted, still screaming.
With that, he turned on his heel and half-ran out of the room, only letting out one tiny sob before he managed to push his way through the crowd that had accumulated.
Blaine stood frozen for only a few seconds before he took off running, shoving his way through the door and shouting, "Kurt! Wait!"
Nobody else seemed to quite know what to do at that point. After a minute of quiet muttering, most of them began to look down awkwardly at their books as the crowd in the doorway dispersed.
"Kurt!" Blaine shouted again as he ran after Kurt.
He finally caught up to him in on the staircase up to the dorms, grabbing onto Kurt's arm to stop him. Kurt whirled to face him.
"Let go of me," he growled, the effect somewhat ruined by the tear tracks on his cheeks.
"Just—Just stop for a second okay? Please don't run away."
Kurt stared at Blaine stonily, but didn't move as Blaine slowly released his arm.
"Kurt," Blaine said desperately, thankful that the room was deserted at the moment. The presence of other people throughout the rest of this whole fiasco had been bad enough. "Kurt, you're not—I don't think—"
"Spit it out, Blaine," Kurt said coldly.
"You're not a b-bitch," he finally whispered reluctantly, looking down at his shoes. Cursing was Kurt's thing; Blaine almost never did it. He did try to be a gentleman, after all, despite his attitude for the past two days.
He looked up again to see Kurt looking vaguely surprised. He hadn't run away, though, which spurred Blaine to continue.
"You're not high-maintenance. You're an amazing artist."
Kurt's expression softened.
"Your bow ties aren't stupid. They're endearing," he replied softly. Blaine chuckled at the chosen adjective.
"Your hair is amazing, every day. And your hairspray smells like strawberries, so it's kind of nice that you use so much of it."
Kurt blushed slightly.
"You don't smell like a gas station. You actually smell like coffee. And cinnamon. Which makes sense, but you don't drink too much coffee, and it's not the reason you're shorter than me."
"I like it when I hear Lady Gaga from your room, because I know that you only play her at full volume when you're really happy."
"Your pop song covers are kind of adorable. They're better than the originals half the time. And you look really cute when your hair isn't styled."
"You have such a high standard for yourself that I'm really jealous of. I don't know how to do that, really."
"You know how to be polite and not criticize everybody around you."
Blaine paused, then whispered, "You're not going to be alone forever."
Kurt was about to reply when he was distracted by Blaine reaching out and taking his hand. He watched Blaine steadily, but Blaine kept his eyes on their joined hands, softly tracing patterns on the back of Kurt's with his thumb, as he spoke.
"Any guy would love to be with you. And whoever will be will be so lucky because you're amazing. You're amazing and giving and honest and beautiful and perfect."
Kurt remained silent. Blaine looked back up at him.
"And I am so, so sorry if I ever made you think any differently."
Their eyes locked.
I'm sorry too.
Blaine nodded slightly. I want to… I don't want to freak you out and make you run away.
Nothing you do will ever make me run away.
So Blaine pulled Kurt by his hand up to the step he was standing on and stepped forward, into Kurt's personal bubble.
Okay?
Kurt nodded.
Then Blaine took a deep breath, used his grip on Kurt's hand to bring him just a little bit closer, and gently brushed his lips over Kurt's.
After just a moment's hesitation, Kurt's hand tightened on Blaine's, his other hand came up to cup Blaine's cheek, and he kissed Blaine back.
They broke apart after a few seconds, but kept their faces only inches away from each other.
Okay?
So much more than okay.
So Blaine kissed him again.
When they showed up at dinner hand in hand, everybody who noticed had the tact to not talk about it too much. All of their friends did looked extremely relieved, and smiled as the two sat down right next to each other at their regular table.
Taylor was grinning at them.
"I knew you guys had something," he said. "I could tell. I'm so happy for you two."
Blaine and Kurt glanced at each other.
Let's never tell him how this thing started.
Agreed.
Suddenly, somebody's phone began to ring. Taylor jumped slightly and pulled his phone out of his bag.
Glancing at the screen, he said, "Sorry, guys, I really have to take this. It's my boyfriend back home and it's probably important if he's calling me right now."
Blaine's eyes widened, and met Kurt's.
Seriously? Seriously?
Apparently so, yes.
They both burst out into quiet giggles, gaining the attention of the rest of the table.
"They're going to be doing that even more now that they're together, aren't they?" Wes asked mournfully.
"I'm afraid so," David replied.
They all looked up a second later at a sudden outburst of noise not far from them.
"Brooke?" Wes asked in surprise.
"Emily?" David said, echoing Wes's tone.
"Katrina?" Joey said. "What are you doing here?"
Brooke waved them off impatiently.
"We're here to see Kurt," she explained.
"Kurt, we just got your text; we were all getting manicures so we couldn't check our phones! I'm so sorry we didn't come sooner!" Katrina exclaimed.
"It's fine," Kurt said, smiling. "The girls in Lima have been interrogating me via text message for the past three hours. Besides, I was…" he paused before continuing. "Kind of busy."
All three of the girls squealed, and Katrina grabbed Kurt's hand that Blaine wasn't holding and pulled him out of Blaine's grip and away from the table.
"I guess I have to go now," Kurt said, sounding rather amused. "I'll see you guys later, okay?"
With that, he turned and walked away with the girls.
The last thing that the table heard before they were out of earshot was Emily asking, "So, was it soft and tender, or more of an I-must-have-you-now-kiss-me kind of thing?"
All of the boys turned to look at Blaine, who looked completely shell-shocked. He shook his head, looked back at the group walking out the cafeteria doors, and then back at his friends.
"Honestly," Joey asked in amusement. "Did you really expect anything different?"
Poor Blaine. The telling-everything is probably going to affect him a lot.
On a note only kind of relevant to this story, I recently realized that I have never once, in my entire history of Klaine shipping, read a fan fiction that was gel-friendly. You'd think Ryan Murphy, or whoever it is that makes those decisions, would have taken a hint by now.