Adventures in cross-posting continue once more!
Warnings for: age difference (Kurt is 17, Blaine 27)
This story is a pseudo-sequel to All That Has Become of Me - you do not need to have read that story to understand this one. All you need to know is that Kurt and Blaine are dating, Kurt is 17, Blaine is 27.
Put Into Perspective
(Or: five people who disapprove of Kurt and Blaine's relationship, and one person who doesn't.)
i. Cally Whytt
Cally moves to Lima during the summer between her junior and senior year of high school.
She's not happy about it.
It's not that McKinley High isn't a decent high school; from what she can tell, it's actually pretty good (compared to some of the schools she's seen) for academics and extracurriculars. It's not even the fact that she's going to be living with her scum-of-the earth father for the entirety of her senior year.
It's the fact that it's Lima. In Ohio.
Which – okay, she gets it – could be worse. It's supposed to be all cute and small-town-y – the type of place that Mom would have loved – but Cally just thinks of sunny San Fran, of battered converse and sea breeze, and thinks that wherever she ended up was just going to suck by comparison.
It's with a somewhat sour attitude and a solid determination to hate every second of her time here that Cally walks up to the front office of McKinley High to report in for her first day. She glowers her way through the conversation with the nosey secretary, collects her timetable, turns and walks … straight into another student.
At average height, with the most well-styled hair she has ever seen and the barest hint of muscle tone showing underneath what looks to be a veritable armour of clothes, this guy is pretty good looking. He's also ice cold in every meaning of the word, and outright glares at Cally as he moves to pick up his stuff – textbooks, a ream of fabric, Vogue, okay, stereotypes aside, this guy's probably gay.
Ignoring the chill of brave that sinks into her mind, Cally offers him a hand up, because, angry as she may be about Lima – Lima – she hasn't forgotten about basic human manners and interactions.
The other guy doesn't take her hand. In fact, he looks up only to give Cally the most disdainful look she has ever experienced.
Fair enough. Figuring she's made her basic effort – good turn for the day done – Cally drops her hand and walks past him without so much as looking back.
As she leaves, however, she can't help but overhear the too-chipper-for-her-own-good secretary say, "Oh, Kurt, there you are. Shall we talk?"
Kurt doesn't have any classes with Cally except for healthy class, she soon learns. According to Zainab – the pretty Nigerian girl who offered her a pencil to sketch with in their shared art class – he's one of the band geeks, or something, and has a different timetable to her own art-oriented one. He and a bunch of other kids – the name Rachel Berry is mentioned, accompanied by a sneer – are in this singing and dancing club, or something, which – stereotypes once more aside – doesn't surprise Cally in the least.
"So is he popular or something?" Cally asks in between bites of her crummy homemade sandwich – it's just butter and bread; Dad forgot to go grocery shopping again – and Zainab looks at her like she's cracked.
"Hummel?" she asks, half-incredulous, half-amused. "What gave you that impression?"
"Well, you seemed to know who I was talking about when I said his name," Cally hedges. "And I don't know, he seems to be friends with a lot of cheerleaders," she shrugs. "I assumed."
Zainab shakes her head. "First, those cheerleaders – not his friends," she explains. "They didn't even know who he was until he won them nationals a couple of years back."
And, okay, that wasn't what she was expecting.
"And secondly," Zainab continues, "we don't talk about Kurt because he's popular. That's like saying fame's the same as infamy."
And now Cally just has to know. "Go on," she says.
"Hummel thought it would be a good idea to try and make history all by himself," Zainab says, then clarifies. "He's gay – flaming and out and proud." She rolls her eyes. "Stupid is more like it," she mutters under her breath.
That sounds ominous. "Stupid?" Cally prompts.
Zainab shakes her head. "Yeah," she reiterates. "Stupid. Like he thought being gay in Ohio was going to be a picnic in the park, or something." She roughly shoves her lunch tray away from her and kicks back in her seat. "There was this whole thing last year with a jock who tried to kill him, or something, and there was all this talk about him transferring, but he just came right back at the end of the year."
"Right," Cally says, feeling a little sick.
Zainab just shrugs. "Stuff like that happens in Lima. No one gives a damn."
Cally drops the remainders of her butter sandwich and calculates how many days before she can escape this hellhole.
"So, about Kurt," Cally starts, painting a broad stroke of colour on her canvas.
"What about him?" Zainab asks, the paintbrush in her teeth making her words come out garbled and half-incoherent.
"Does he have a boyfriend?" she asks, out of idle curiosity, not because she's interested, because she's not.
Sighing deeply, Zainab removes the paintbrush from her mouth and shakes her head sympathetically at Cally.
"What?" Cally demands.
Zainab just shakes her head again. "You're not the first, and knowing our gender, you probably won't be the last, but this isn't something you want to pursue."
"Really not what I was asking," Cally tells her quickly, but then her mind catches up with the response. "What do you mean, I'm not the first?"
"He had a fling with Brittany," Zainab explains, then frowns. "Must have been sophomore year. It was… well, you know Brittany."
"It really wasn't about that," Cally insists, storing the information away for later. "Just—people keep saying this shit about him, and I kind of have to wonder how much of it is true and how much of it is just shit people say—" Cally breaks off when she sees the look on Zainab's face. "What?"
"You really are new to Lima aren't you?" she muses, then straightens up. "To answer your question, yes, Kurt does have a boyfriend."
"Do you know his name?"
Zainab sighs, like she wishes she didn't. "Blaine Anderson."
It makes sense really – the real reason why no one can shut up about Kurt Hummel at McKinley High. It's nothing to do with his near offensive flamboyancy, or his – by the sounds of it at least – salacious past with several cheerleaders, or even the whole attempted murder – Cally's still not sure if this actually happened – and subsequent transfer rumours.
Because, well, murder is sexy, but there's nothing sexier than sex.
It's the talk of the town, apparently, and Cally is kind of lost as to how she managed to miss all this during the month she's already been in Lima.
Kurt Hummel: seventeen years old and dating a man ten years older than him. Kurt Hummel: gay and has the audacity to be open about it. Kurt Hummel: gay and has the audacity to act onit.
No, Cally really doesn't know how she missed it, because Blaine Anderson picks Kurt up from school at least twice a week – in a shiny silver BMW that is really difficult to miss in amongst the other rust-buckets lining the school parking lot – and has been seen dropping him off often enough that it's not uncommon. And every time the healthy class teacher – Morrigan? God, Cally doesn't even care – talks about their partners pressuring them into things they aren't ready for, he directs at least half of his entire speech at Kurt.
(And Kurt just sits there and takes it, impassive in a way that Cally could never be, but looks so angry, and bitter, and Cally actually finds it in her heart to pity him for five minutes, before Zainab's vitriol replays in her head, and unbidden and unwelcome, the thought comes: you asked for it.)
Cally really isn't sure how she feels about it all.
She isn't disapproving, sure, but she doesn't exactly condone it, either.
Blaine Anderson is hot – there's no denying that – but he seems… Well, dangerous would be a bit far, but fake, maybe, too polished and insincere. He oozes power too, and that doesn't seem to bode well.
Kurt is, however, not hot. Sure, he's elegant, maybe, and most certainly attractive in a higher-elfin-beauty kind of way, but he lacks the confidence about him to be hot. Insecure, Cally would guess, and looking at the clothes he wears – layers upon layers, like chainmail and a tunic – Cally thinks he's trying to build something out of himself, something that maybe he's not ready for.
Then there's the money.
Blaine Anderson isn't just painfully sexy – there's something about a man in a suit, Mom once said, and suits are to women what lingerie is to men – but he's also rich as hell. And, if the fact that Kurt is dressed head-to-toe in designer clothes day-in day-out is any indication, he's not afraid to throw that money around. He drives a BMW, for God's sake – that is not the car of someone trying to hide their wealth.
Kurt is – well, his father is a mechanic, and his brother – step-brother, Finn Hudson, he's on the football squad – dresses in worn down jeans and patchy hoodies, so, no, he's not made of money.
And then there's the age-gap.
Because Blaine Anderson isn't just rich and gorgeous; he's also older than Kurt by at least ten years. That's enough to push him out of the territory of boy – a territory Kurt still inhabits, regardless of the age of consent in Ohio – and straight into the territory of man.
What Cally means is – that's a heck of a lot of shit to be able to hold over someone. When there's that sort of gap in power in a relationship, it rarely ever turns out well.
But Kurt doesn't seem oppressed. He's not happy at school, but he doesn't—he doesn't look like he's in an unhealthy relationship – and Cally knows what unhealthy relationships look like – but, still. Blaine Anderson – what kind of fully-grown man dates a high-schooler?
It's not really her business, though, Cally will concede. She's got other stuff on her plate – namely making sure she graduates despite her failing grade in chemistry – and there's only so much you can do for someone who doesn't want your help.
She learns to ignore the more extravagant of the Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel rumours – seriously? How the fuck would you even know about what Kurt says in bed? Yeah, right, sure – and manages to scrape together enough brains to pass her chemistry final with flying colours.
Then comes prom.
She doesn't really want to go, but Zainab does, so she pulls out her old junior prom dress and does her hair and make-up, and goes without so much as complaining. Okay, she complains a little, but she figures it's less of a whingey spiel of how unfair this is and more of a way of formally registering her displeasure. Zainab hooks her up with a date – some other guy from their art class – and Cally resigns herself to the fact that she's going to have to dance at least once with this kid.
It's halfway through a slow-dance that lasts far too long that Cally spots Kurt's friends. They're laughing, joking and dancing their way through the evening, but Cally … can't see Kurt. Which is weird, because Cally knows he came to the dance – was stuck behind him as they queued for their photos, and had to listen to him bitch at Mercedes about how trashy a dinosaur-themed prom was.
(It is kind of trashy, Cally agrees, and seriously weird, but whatever. Cally's not here to have fun anyway.)
Cally escapes the embrace of her date as soon as she can, and pushes her way through the crowd of people, desperate for air. God, she's almost out of this place; she can survive a lousy dance with a cheesy soundtrack and the vinegary stench of slightly tipsy teenagers.
And that's when she finds Kurt.
Back against the lockers, head resting on his boyfriend's shoulder, Kurt looks the most relaxed that Cally has ever seen him. Gone are the layers, gone are the glares – he looks like a teenager.
And they may not be dancing, but everything about their position feels far more intimate than the dance she shared with her overly-enthusiastic date. Kurt says something, the words lost against his boyfriend's shoulder, and it must be witty or something, because the Blaine guy's face cracks into a full smile. He turns his head and—
Cally would kill to have someone look at her like that.
He murmurs something back and Kurt just smiles – wicked and mischevious – before prodding Blaine lightly in the ribs.
They do it without realising it. Like it's normal.
And Cally knows what unhealthy relationships look like – she's seen it played out before her in her own life – and she wonders how on earth two idiots with so much against them managed to somehow get it right where her parents failed.
So Cally turns around and walks away.
[TBC]