A/N: Written for the Kurtoberfest prompt #2 'masquerade' and partially inspired by this prompt: Person A of your OTP is having negative thoughts about their body and Person B walks in on them looking at themselves naked, on the verge of breaking down. B tries to calm A down and tells them they're beautiful, but A isn't having it. B then proceeds to take A to their bed. B starts to slowly trail kisses on A's body, saying a reason why A is perfect with each one. When A still doesn't believe B, B takes things a step further. B ends up making love to A. With each touch of A's body, B praises and worships and does nothing but say how beautiful A is until A is sobbing in pleasure and love.
Notes - I wrote Kurt a little more self-conscious in this one-shot than I might do normally, but I did that because of the prompt. I also added some canon issues to try and keep Kurt truer to character and make up for that. I also attempted making Adam a bit…shall we say…hotter (for lack of a better term). They're boyfriends now, it's obvious that they live together, and that they have a pretty steady sexual relationship. So, if Adam seems…well, un-Adam, I apologize. I'm experimenting. Again, this is for lovejoybliss, who is such a sweetheart, and deserves more Kadam fic in her life.
Warning for self-esteem and body issues.
Arabesque. Pirouette. Grand jete. Attitude derriere.
These are the four more difficult steps Kurt has to perform, so he practices them every chance he gets. After every step, he checks his positions in the mirror, making sure they're as crisp as the other dancers' positions, as strong. No one else is in the dance room with him, but he can see them in his mind – the other men chosen to dance in the ensemble for a ballet called 'Masquerade'. It's an original work created by five members of the Master's program. Kurt auditioned to fulfill an elective requirement that he neither endorses nor understands. He's majoring in Theatrical Performance. He's not sure when exactly he's going to use a fouetté should he ever find himself performing the lead in Finding Neverland or Kinky Boots.
Kurt's not really a fan of most student directed projects. Even at a school as prestigious and cutting edge as NYADA, most of them tend to be parochial. Too many of the students here are afraid to take risks, confront real issues, which Kurt has always felt the arts has a responsibility to do. But this ballet, he has to say, speaks to him.
It portrays the story of two men, both from vastly different backgrounds, who start out hating one another, then fall in love, but are kept apart by everything that they once held dear – family, friends, culture, school, stature. It's kind of like Romeo and Juliet, if Romeo had fallen in love with Tybalt at the Masquerade Ball instead of Juliet, which Kurt had always thought would have made a much more compelling story. The choreography for the ballet is beyond brilliant, the musical score inspired, but the costumes…not so much. So as not to distract from the story and its two leads, the ensemble is basically wearing black tights and an elaborate Venetian Masquerade mask.
As a masked member of the ensemble, Kurt and the other men represent the seven deadly sins – two dancers for each sin.
The sin Kurt portrays is envy.
At the moment, it's kind of fitting.
Fourteen men in total were chosen – muscular, elegant, statuesque men, each one leading man material in his own right.
And then there's Kurt.
Kurt doesn't hate his body, but he's stopped being fond of mirrors lately. He got excited when his body had started to transform – the more strenuous dancing and stage fighting classes at NYADA helping him leave that stubborn five pounds or so of high school "baby fat" behind. But now he'd hit a plateau.
Not physically. Mentally.
Kurt gives himself credit for not being the same person he was in high school, but old hurts run deep, cracking so far into his psyche that no amount of renewed self-confidence reaches them. The memory of every time someone in his past called him 'lady', even if they weren't intentionally trying to insult him, returned from the depths of the abyss to roost in the forefront of his mind, where it cackles cruelly, refusing to be ignored, every time he catches a glimpse of himself shirtless in the mirror.
And as this is the first time he's performing in something that can be termed an actual ballet, it's the first time ever that he's had to wear a dance belt. It's seamless beneath his tights and has a thong back – no one not involved in dance would know he has it on. It puts him out there, so to speak, and what he sees, from a detached perspective, is impressive. But it makes him uncomfortably aware of his body. It doesn't feel like him, so even though it's flattering, he doesn't particularly likes what he sees.
Probably because he's never seen himself this way. No one else seemed to. Not Blaine. Not the New Directions. Not the Warblers. Even as a football player, he wasn't athletic, not a jock. He doesn't know how to look at this new body of his and say, confidently, that he looks attractive. He feels like he's playing a part, one that everyone around him knows is not him. He's going to walk out on stage, and everyone's going to know that he's a fraud.
Knock-knock.
The knock on the door startles him, though it shouldn't. He knew Adam would be by when he got out of his lecture at 5:30. Kurt looks at the clock on the wall. 5:45. Crap! He was going to wrap things up and change out of his costume before then. If only there was a way he could get to his bag and slip his hoodie on without being obvious about it.
"Hey!" Adam says, strolling into the dance room, subtly eying his shirtless boyfriend up and down, appreciating the way his tights hide nothing (even though, in the whole of NYADA, he's the only one who knows how much more glorious Kurt's body is underneath). "Are you still practicing?"
"Yeah," Kurt answers, lying a little since practicing turned into standing in front of the mirror and judging himself about twenty minutes ago.
"You know, you might be overdoing it a little," Adam says, putting his bag down beside Kurt's in front of the mirror.
"I know," Kurt says, watching Adam walk over to him, avoiding any more peeks at his reflection. "I just…I don't want to screw up. You know, I am in the chorus. All eyes are going to be on me."
"Well, mine are," Adam says, walking up behind him and wrapping his arms around Kurt's stomach. Kurt laughs, but he rolls his eyes away, sucking in his tummy so Adam doesn't have to touch the remaining pouch of soft middle that Kurt's self-conscious about.
"So, are you ready to head out? Or is there something else you need to do here?" Adam asks. He has to be careful in the way he approaches things with Kurt. Ask Kurt's friends (who talk way too much out of school then they have the right to) and they'd say Kurt has a problem with intimacy, but Adam doesn't see that at all. Kurt is a very open, very giving man, once he lets his guard down. But he's spent so much time hiding, so much time protecting himself, that he'd rather cover up then let his scars - and the beauty that outshines them - show.
Adam felt Kurt sucking in his stomach. He saw his eyes roll away. There's something bothering him, but if Adam asks him outright, Kurt will find a way to make a joke out of it, or he'll explain it, but in a vague way, and then change the subject.
"More than ready," Kurt says with a laugh that sounds a little unnatural. "Let me go get changed."
"Are you sure you don't want to go out like this?" Adam teases gently as Kurt walks to the mirror to get his bag. "I mean, I have to say, love, your backside looks fabulous in those tights. In fact, that's a particularly alluring uniform they have you in, if I do say so myself."
"I really wish they'd given me a mask that covers my whole body," Kurt mutters. He says it under his breath, softly, not even opening his mouth. He didn't expect Adam to hear it. He didn't expect him to latch on to it. But when Kurt bends to grab his things, Adam catches him by the shoulder and turns him around to face him.
"Why would you say that?" Adam asks, looking hurt on Kurt's behalf.
"Because…" Kurt starts, full of self-depreciating fire and fury, but it stops short of igniting at the sorrowful look in Adam's eyes. "Because…I…"
Kurt didn't expect this conversation. He doesn't know exactly how to explain it, not without sounding foolish. But Adam's a perceptive man. He doesn't need Kurt to say out loud what he knows in his heart he's thinking.
"Is it the same reason why you're always on the side of shirts in stage fighting class?" Adam asks, broaching a subject he knows Kurt's been running away from since they started officially dating – since they started being intimate. "Is it the reason why you turn the lights off when we fool around? Why you put on a robe before you get out of bed?"
Kurt turns his head to the side and away, but Adam won't let him. He doesn't force Kurt to look at him. Instead, he turns Kurt back toward the mirror in the hopes that he'll take the hint and look at himself.
"I don't know how you can see yourself, Kurt, and not think that you're insanely handsome."
"Well, maybe I see myself better than you do," Kurt says. "Maybe I see the big picture." It's tongue in cheek, and sounds bitter to Kurt, but Adam hears the pain in it.
"Then stop looking at the big picture," Adam says. "And look at the parts."
Kurt sighs. He doesn't look up, but Adam doesn't let that stop him.
"Look at these hands…" Adam takes Kurt's right wrist in his grip and lifts his arm up till Kurt's hand is eye level. "I can't imagine the amount of writing and drawing and sewing and piano playing that's gone into the creation of these hands." Kurt flicks his gaze up for a second and watches Adam examine his palm, his fingers. Kurt doesn't keep his eyes there, but Adam doesn't need him to, as long as he's listening. "And your shoulders" – Adam finds a spot close to his lips and places a kiss there – "your back" - He runs a finger down the length of Kurt's spine – "look at how strong they are. Think off all the things you've had to carry with you that's made you this strong, and you're still here."
Kurt's eyes rise slowly along with the color in his skin, starting from his chest and moving up his neck to his face to darken his cheeks.
"And your legs," Adam says, moving the fingers on Kurt's back to the side of his thigh, crawling them up the side seam of his tights. "That definition…those muscles. You told me about the bullies, Kurt. Remember? You told me how they did their best to keep you down. But look at your legs. You're still standing."
Adam's fingers travel up to Kurt's waistband, and in an unexpected move, he clamps his hand hard over Kurt's left butt cheek. Kurt yelps, then he laughs.
"And this ass…" Adam says, biting his lip and squeezing hard, letting that be his explanation, as if he has no words to describe it.
"Yeah, well, I figured you for an ass man the first time I heard you sing," Kurt says, squirming away.
"Not really," Adam says. "Yours just happens to be exceptional."
Kurt laughs louder. He stares at his reflection, and he doesn't look away, catching Adam's gaze as it locks with his in the mirror. The way Adam looks at Kurt is unexpected; it's never apologetic, never ashamed. Adam enjoys looking at Kurt, and he lets Kurt know it. Kurt starts to relax, and Adam's eyes soften.
"Kurt, you're one of the kindest, smartest, most talented men I've ever met," he says, tilting his head to rest their temples together. "And this outer casing of skin you're trapped in, that's not who you are, but it doesn't hurt that all of this on the outside is just as sensational as all of this" - Adam wraps his arm around him and puts a hand over Kurt's heart – "on the inside."
A scathing remark leaps to Kurt's throat, but unlike other times, before he says it, he really thinks about it first.
His instinct is to object. To argue. To make all of Adam's stunning compliments unimportant and insignificant, but why? Why can't he just accept the fact that Adam sees all these things in him? Why can't he accept a compliment when it's so freely and honestly given?
On a level he knows it's not something he's good at because he's had no real practice.
But now that the bullies from high school are gone, and he doesn't really see anyone from McKinley any more, the only person tearing him down on a daily basis is himself.
And that needs to stop.
So he swallows his arguments instead of giving them a voice, and responds with, "Really?"
"Yeah," Adam answers with a short, disbelieving laugh, as if it's ridiculous that no one has ever told Kurt that before. "Yeah, it is."
Kurt turns his head to say thank you – thank you for being here, thank you for sticking around, thank you for getting to know me, the real me. But Adam's lips are right there, close to his, and they look so inviting and warm. Kurt only has to look at them once before Adam kisses him, holding him with his arm around his torso, his hand pressed to his chest, feeling Kurt's heart race beneath his fingertips.
"Let's get out of here," Adam whispers, then kisses Kurt again. "Let me take you out to dinner. Let's put this ballet to rest and focus on something else for a while."
"O-okay," Kurt says, unwinding reluctantly from Adam's arms, wondering why dinner is more important than kissing a while longer. "Let me just…"
"Don't change," Adam says with a look in his eyes that he doesn't get often unless they're alone – one that's hungry, one that sees Kurt for the man he is, and not the boy everyone else he knows from high school thinks he stayed. "Just put on your boots, and your hoodie." He steps in closer, saying the next words close enough to let them play over Kurt's lips. "There's no reason we should deprive the world of those gorgeous legs and that beautiful ass, is there? I mean, only if you're comfortable, that is."
Kurt nods, his breath completely stolen by that look lingering in Adam's eyes. "I guess I can do that," he says, slipping his feet into his Docs and grabbing his sweater.
"Good." Adam shoulders his bag, then takes Kurt's bag and puts the strap over his shoulder, on top of his own. He waits until Kurt has his hoodie on, then he tugs down the back until it covers his rear. "We will pull this down a bit over your bum, though. Don't need a swarm of lusting admirers following us home."