Notes: Re-written for the Klaine Valentine's Challenge prompt 'The Words'.
The scariest part is letting go
'Cause love is a ghost you can't control
It's close to ten o'clock when Kurt returns to Dalton. He's two hours past curfew, but that's fine. Every senior knows how to get into the dorms after the resident advisors lock the doors for the night. It's a rite of passage that the juniors are taught at the end of the school year by the graduating seniors. Kurt is pretty confident that the administration knows about the seniors' "great escape". It's not that devious a secret. There's a fake panel in the floor of the groundskeeper's shed. It leads to an underground passage that lets out in the boiler room. From there, a ladder goes up to a rarely used utility closet. It's kind of obvious, especially on Sunday nights, when scores of boys come streaming through, one at a time and in three minute intervals like they're actually being stealthy. But the higher-ups at Dalton haven't fixed it. Maybe they agree that an eight p.m. curfew for seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds is asinine, and that breaking out every once in a while is an important step to their boys becoming men – finding their way out into the world on their own, practicing independence.
Which would be ironic considering the one thing that happens to everyone during their teen years without consent – the thing that Kurt is trying his hardest to run away from. Kurt has gone through many rites of passage over the past four years, none of which he's had the power to affect … until now.
He didn't tell anyone he was going. He just up and left after English class, turning off his cell phone so he wouldn't be tempted to answer it. He didn't want anyone trying to stop him. Not that they could have. He'd had this decision made from the second the registrar showed up at school (McKinley at the time) and their goons tattooed a name on his wrist - the name of his government appointed "mate" as chosen by the Department of Health and Human Services. That tattoo was the catalyst that put a mountain of change into motion – a bully at his school, one who had been making Kurt's life hell, kissed him, revealing some apparent pent up longing for Kurt which needed to be expressed when he discovered that he and Kurt weren't meant to be together; moving from McKinley to Dalton, since going to where his mate lived was easier than convincing his mate's family to transfer for Kurt; and then falling in love, incidentally not with his government appointed mate, which was a problem.
A problem that Kurt needed to fix, and he didn't want to be delayed. The man willing to do this for him was only available during a brief window of time that afternoon. After tonight, he'd have to leave. Kurt's is the first cover up of this kind that he's ever done, but aside from it, other things he's been doing aren't exactly legal.
He has to leave Ohio soon before he gets caught.
Four hours Kurt drove till he reached his destination, but the process took only one hour to complete. After it was done, Kurt felt relieved. Lifted. Like the biggest burden of his life had been removed from his shoulders.
For the first time since he'd turned sixteen, Kurt felt free.
But returning to Dalton, stepping into the dorm, a cold chill sets in. Maybe he should have just gone back to Lima, hid out at home and planned his next move. At homeroom in the morning, everyone's going to see what he did, and then he'll have to face the consequences.
That's only twelve short hours away.
He's not going to be able to sleep. In fact, he'll probably just stay up all night and vomit until then.
But the reason he came back to Dalton is one of the reasons why he drove four hours to do what he did.
Kurt can't leave the boy he fell in love with behind.
This part of the dorm – uninhabited after several floors (minus this one) were retrofitted over twenty years ago – is normally quiet and empty when the boys return. That's what Kurt's hoping for, but he finds Blaine waiting for him, sitting in a gold gilded wing chair at the far end when Kurt sneaks out of the utility closet. Kurt had a feeling he would be. Blaine has been obsessed with Kurt's tattoo, and the name cutting black across his porcelain skin, since the moment Kurt arrived at Dalton. There's a 50/50 chance that Blaine is going to be furious over what Kurt did, but Kurt had no other choice. He had no intention of being locked into this antiquated system, a system which he didn't agree to. This is his life. Only he gets to live it. He has to have the right to make his own decisions.
And he'll live with the consequences of those decisions. He just hopes that, in time, Blaine understands, and can forgive him.
"You didn't tell me you were going."
Kurt grins, but it falls flat. "Yes, I did."
"Correction," Blaine says, mildly annoyed by Kurt's attempt to stall by nitpicking, "you didn't tell me you were going today."
"You would have tried to stop me."
"You're damn right I would have tried to stop you!" Blaine launches from his chair, more hurt and afraid than upset. "Kurt! This wasn't a good idea!"
"What did you expect me to do?"
"Put up with it! Make the best of it! Just like the rest of us!" Blaine raises his arm to wave his own tattoo, emblazoned across his wrist, in Kurt's face. "At least you could have talked to me about this before you did it. Asked me how I felt."
"Why? Regardless of whose name is on my wrist, it's my life! Besides, didn't you tell me that you hate this system as much as I do? I'm doing both of us a favor."
"By throwing your life away?" Blaine chuckles with an uncharacteristic cruelty that comes from his heart breaking. This wasn't Kurt's only choice. They could have figured something else out, something that wouldn't possibly get him arrested. "Some favor."
Kurt's eyes water, but he refuses to let Blaine see him cry. He might mistake his tears for regret, and he in no way regrets what he did. "Are you really mad at me?"
"Yes," Blaine huffs, crossing his arms. But it's not a gesture of anger. It's a need for security. Blaine hugs himself hard, trying to stop shaking, and when he can't, he decides it's time to face the music. "Well, let me see it," he says, not sure that he wants to. Because if what Kurt did actually sets him free from this arranged mate b.s., what does that mean for Blaine, with a name still on his wrist?
What does that mean for the two of them?
Kurt rolls up his sleeve and presents Blaine his wrist. The artist who covered Kurt's tattoo put a piece of clear plastic tape over it to protect it. Blaine can't feel the skin underneath, but he can see the new image blotting out the old.
"I … I can't believe you covered it," Blaine murmurs, staring at the vividly rendered blackbird surrounded by a flourish of rainbow musical notes where the name used to be. "How … how could you do that?"
"I warned you," Kurt says, defending his actions instead of offering an explanation. He's already explained a dozen times. If Blaine doesn't understand by now, one more explanation isn't going to do any good. "I told you I was going to."
Blaine continues to shake his head. In awe? In disappointment? He wishes Blaine would get past this initial shock and just tell him what's going on in his head. "You're going to get in so much trouble."
"I don't care," Kurt groans, done with this part of the reveal, ready to move on with making plans for the rest of his life as if this one action might not stop that all in its tracks. "How is whatever they can do to me any worse than not being able to live and love on my own terms?" Kurt wants to sound more confident, more sure of his place in the world than he does. Even though every day of his life up until now wasn't guaranteed (because no one's is), for the first time, he can feel the weight of tomorrow's uncertainty pressing on his shoulders. "This is my life. I decide how to live it. I decide who I love, Blaine ... and I love you."
"You could have learned to love Sebastian," Blaine argues, his voice crackling, curling at the corners like a sheet of paper catching fire around the edges, being slowly eaten from the outside in.
Kurt glares at Blaine, crooks an eyebrow, insulted that Blaine would ever suggest such a thing considering everything that infuriating boy has done to him so far. That's not supposed to matter though. After the "bonding ceremony", biology kicks in and things are supposed to change. You become inexplicably enamored, inseparable. Many people see it as the height of romantic, but to Kurt, it sounds terrifying.
Like mind-control.
Even if it were Blaine's name on his wrist, the system, at heart, is at fault, if it can force millions of people to fall in love with a government-appointed stranger against their will.
"And what if I told you that you did this for nothing?" Blaine asks, tears hiding underneath the words, something Kurt has never heard in Blaine's voice before. "That the registrar was right? That I agree I should go find this Eli guy? Be with him and not you?"
Kurt puts his hand over Blaine's in a way that doesn't hide his new tattoo. No matter what, Kurt can't hide what he did. "I can't take this back. So if you do want to find him, I need you to tell me now …"
"So you can run away? Hide and be safe?" Blaine asks, ready to pack Kurt's things and shove him out the door if he agrees.
"No. I still intend to fight this system. It isn't right. I just need to know exactly what I'm fighting for."
Blaine holds Kurt's arm and stares at his tattoo. He didn't expect Kurt to feel so strongly about this. But he isn't the only one. Most everyone at Dalton agrees it isn't fair. A lot of the teachers blocked the doors in protest the day the registrar showed up, hoping to spare their students this fate, but there was nothing they could do. Many of the ones who weren't arrested were fired on the spot until the rest backed down. Both Kurt and Blaine know it's not up to the adults to fight this time.
It's up to them to step forward and say no.
No more.
"This … has never been done before," Blaine says, his voice losing volume as his argument starts losing stamina.
"There's always a first time. Someone has to be that first." Kurt raises Blaine's hands to his mouth and braves a kiss across his knuckles. Kurt doesn't want Blaine to pull away, but that's all he can expect. He knows how Blaine feels about him. He knows Blaine loves him. He just doesn't know how Blaine, son of a senator, feels about bucking this system – a system that Blaine's father happens to think works well. If Blaine goes along with Kurt, he has a whole lot to lose, and only one thing to gain – Kurt.
"Then I guess …" Blaine lets go of Kurt, but only long enough to wrap his arms around him and hug him tight "… I'll be the second."