Nine
"Weathervane"
The morning couldn't come soon enough for Blaine. Kurt had fallen asleep sometime around one in the morning. They had talked and sang to each other long after they'd had to stop kissing and cool off. After the tornado warning expired at midnight and they had the all clear, they'd considered leaving for Dalton, but it felt pointless after getting so settled in the basement.
But Blaine had not been able to follow Kurt into slumber. No matter how long he kept his eyes shut or sheep he counted or soothing vistas he conjured up, all the normal methods to relax himself were interrupted by memories. Now that he understood the depth of his father's hatred for him, every remembered conversation – every avoided conversation – held sinister undertones.
He had given up after awhile and just stared up at the sheet ceiling, clutching Kurt to his side and trying to find solace in his boyfriend's warm body and breath on his neck. He loved Kurt, and he had a place with the Hummels. But they weren't his family. His family was in the same room and a million miles away from him. Years of angry words and cold shoulders separated them.
Blaine felt like an orphan. But instead of hoping his parents had been good people who gave him up for his own good, he knew that his parents were not so good people who just didn't like him very much. As brave a face as he put on and as much as he tried to distract himself yesterday, Blaine was broken inside, and he didn't know how to hold the pieces together. He was like water leaking through cupped hands. Any moment now, he would disappear.
"Mmhmm," Kurt mumbled into Blaine's chest.
"Good morning to you too."
The countertenor sat up and rubbed furiously at his face. He raised his arms over his head and twisted sore back muscles. Blaine agreed that sleeping on a bed of pillows under a sheet fort was romantic, especially given their history with a certain pop song, but the lumpiness of it was murder on the back.
Blaine clucked at Kurt's appearance. His chestnut hair stuck up at all angles from sleep and Blaine's hands running through it. His skin looked so clear and luminous in the morning that Blaine wondered why he even bothered with lotions, and his eyes shined a bright, translucent almost teal color.
Blaine's fingers running along the bare skin of his back seemed to remind Kurt their shirts still lay discarded off the pillow bed. He started and crossed his arms over his chest. Blaine sat up behind his boyfriend and wrapped his arms around his chest. He kissed at his shoulder blades, which he'd discovered last night, Kurt really enjoyed. A shiver ran through the taller boy's body.
"Can't right now," Kurt gasped.
"Why not?"
"So many reasons. Morning breath, room full of homophones, the urgent need to use the restroom."
Blaine chuckled and released Kurt, who dove for the shirts and pulled one on before realizing it was Blaine's Dalton shirt. The dark-haired boy lay back on his elbows and grinned while Kurt deliberated. He could take it off and give Blaine a show or blatantly steal the shirt.
"Just for that smug smile, I'm taking your shirt," Kurt decided.
Blaine got to his feet and helped Kurt up next. He tugged on Kurt's t-shirt while Kurt busied himself pulling down the sheet fort and neatly folding the blankets. They dropped the linens off at the cart waiting at the top of the stairs.
"I'm assuming you'll die without a proper shower?" Kurt narrowed his eyes, but nodded once. "Locker room is this way."
In the bright light of day, nothing looked too different about the country club grounds except some debris littering the golf course and haphazardly placed deck furniture. The forget-me-not-blue sky belied the fact that a tornado had devastated a Columbus suburb last night.
"You're very … awake," Kurt observed.
"Mmm."
"Did you sleep at all?"
Kurt knew him too well to be fooled by any false answer. Normally, Blaine was like a particularly uncoordinated zombie in the mornings. It sometimes took him a full minute to realize someone had spoken to him.
"Uh, no, not really."
"You should have woken me up."
Blaine shrugged. "I thought you liked Twilight?"
"If you ever insult me like that again, I'll slap you. And your attempt at changing the topic didn't work. Do you want to talk about … everything?"
"I – No, I can't. Not yet. I'm still trying to work it all out in my head what I'm feeling."
Kurt took his hand and pulled him to the side of the hallway. They were just within sight of the signs pointing to the men's locker room, and a steady stream of members made their way into the waiting showers.
"Trying to analyze your feelings before you talk about them has never really worked out well for you, Blaine. You can say anything to me. You don't have to have the perfect words. I'll l – be here for you no matter what."
Blaine circled his thumb over the skin on the back of Kurt's hand because he couldn't do much else in this busy hallway. He nodded slightly, apologetically at his boyfriend.
"I know, Kurt. It's just too raw right now. It's not that I don't want to talk to you, because I do and I will. I just don't have the words. I'm feeling in music, if that makes any sense at all. It's like all these things I'm thinking and feeling are all mixed together in this song I can't quite decipher yet."
"What kind of song?" Kurt asked quietly.
"A dirge."
Kurt squeezed his hand, and Blaine squeezed back. Somehow, that gesture reassured him more than a thousand words ever could have.
They went into the locker room and joined the fifteen or so men cleaning up. Some of them made plans to get back out on the golf course and enjoy the nice day. Others had plans to head home and make sure their houses and businesses hadn't been in the path of the storm. Kurt and Blaine overheard it all without meaning to as they went through their morning routines.
It was more than a little uncomfortable showering in the stall next to your boyfriend, Blaine reflected. They had communal showers at Dalton, but with better privacy measure than a locker room. Anyway, after they'd started dating, Kurt and Blaine had never gone to shower at the same time because it was all a little awkward after that.
If the showering was problematic, the getting dressed was ten times worse. There was a moment after the towel came off and underwear went on that Blaine wanted so, so badly to accidentally-on-purpose glance over his shoulder at Kurt, but he lost his nerve and kept his eyes trained on his own clothes.
"I can't believe I'm wearing the same clothes two days in a row. This is disgusting," Kurt complained. "We should have just waited to shower until we got to my house."
"It's not that bad, Kurt."
"Says the man who has a change of clothes," he snapped.
Blaine shrugged. "Not my fault I was going to stay at your house last night. Now, are we going to brush our teeth so we can have a good morning kiss or not?"
They brushed their teeth and did their hair over the sinks. Kurt took so long fussing with his wet hair that Blaine was able to do his hair and shave before his boyfriend was done. He went tenderly over the puffy, swollen skin where Alec's fist had connected with his face, but he truly had endured much, much worse.
"That's why you should just use gel." Kurt rolled his eyes. "No, seriously, did you see how quickly I was done? It's like a palm full of gel, comb, and done. It's beautiful."
Kurt rolled his eyes again and bumped Blaine's shoulder. "I wish I had a hairdryer. I just can't do anything with my hair when it's wet."
A snort of laughter intruded on the conversation, and Blaine's eyes darted up to the mirror. He saw a reflection of two twenty-something guys prancing around and flapping their wrists at each other. His jaw tightened, and his teeth ground together. Kurt's hands stilled on his hair for a moment, and then he sucked in a breath and cast his fiercest look into the mirror without letting his eyes lock directly onto their audience.
"Hairspray. Blaine! Give me my hairspray."
The shorter boy tore his eyes away from the taunting scene and fished Kurt's hairspray out of his bag. His boyfriend closed his eyes and sprayed copious amounts over his hair. Blaine didn't miss the way Kurt directed the aerosol stream at the other guys.
"How do I look?" Kurt demanded. He jutted his hip out and struck a pose. "I look fabulous, don't I?"
"Kurt, what are you doing?" Blaine hissed. "You and locker rooms don't have a great history. Let's just go."
"No. I'm not done yet."
"Kurt, you're going to take another shower as soon as we get to your house. Why does it matter if you're not done?"
"Because I have every right to be here and to act however I want. I'm effeminate, Blaine, that's who I am. I'm comfortable with it, and I like that about myself. I'm not hiding who I am."
Blaine couldn't keep the flash of pain out of his eyes. He felt all his seams splitting open, and like water through fingers, he was gushing out and dissipating into nothing. Kurt had a hand over his mouth and wide eyes. Blaine shook his head. This wasn't the time. They couldn't do this here with the Neanderthals moving on to mimicking blowjobs. He grabbed his bag off the sink and Kurt's hand and pulled is boyfriend out of the locker room.
"Blaine. Blaine, I'm so – "
"Is that what you really think of me?" Blaine asked, rounding on his boyfriend. "Do you really think that I hide who I am? Because I don't think I try and act butch, and I'm sorry if you think I should care about moisturizing and have sleepovers with the girls, but that's not who I am either."
"No, I – "
"Or do you think I'm hiding at Dalton? Because my bullies haven't apologized and started an anti-bullying group like yours have. They're still waiting for me at my old school and wouldn't hesitate to beat the crap out of me again."
"I wasn't implying – "
"If you think so little of me, maybe you should just leave me like everyone else in my life! If you really hate me that much, you can keep in touch and rub it in my face how much better your life is without me in it."
"Blaine!"
The tortured note in Kurt's voice brought him up short. He turned away and ran a hand over his face. He was falling apart and shattering into a thousand pieces and nothing could hold him together. He wasn't aware he was trembling, until Kurt's arms caught him as his knees buckled, and he was guided into a window seat.
Kurt's hand rubbed at his back while Blaine watched his hands shaking uncontrollably in his lap. It was all too much. There were no words or music or feelings anymore, just a buzzing in his head and ringing in his ears. He didn't know how long they sat there without speaking, but the angle of sunlight shifted into their eyes and roused Blaine from nothingness.
"Kurt," he started in a whisper.
"Ssh." Kurt kissed his hair. "You don't have to say anything."
"But I – "
"Ssh. I know, I know. Come on, let's go home, and I'll take care of you."
"Home? But we're seeing Riverdance in Lima tonight."
"That's what I meant. Home. I already texted ahead. Finn said Carole's started making your favorite lunch, and my dad has Music Man waiting in the DVD player."
"It's not my home," Blaine mumbled.
Kurt kissed his hair again. "Of course it is."
Blaine accepted a long drink from a bottle of water Kurt pulled out of his bag. He handed over his car keys when Kurt demanded them, and he let himself be led through the clubhouse and out the front doors. He felt steadier on his feet and more clearheaded when he sucked in a lungful of crisp, dewy morning air.
"Kurt, please let me say that I'm sorry, and I didn't mean any of those awful things I said back there."
Kurt patted his arm softly. "I completely forgive you for your love affair with hair gel."
"Kurt."
"Seriously, Blaine, that was long overdue. I've been waiting for almost twenty-four hours. We don't make epileptics apologize for their seizures or mothers for screaming during childbirth. There are some things we can't help but doing, and breaking down after realizing you're a victim of child abuse is one of those things."
"You don't hate me?"
"Never."
Kurt took control again and guided them through the nearly empty parking lot. He stopped short three spaces away from the car, and Blaine peered up curiously. His heart stuttered in his chest. Someone was leaning against the hood of the Mustang, arms crossed, clearly waiting.
His dad.
