Happy Klaine week! It's Klaine week, right? I'm not all that great at navigating Tumblr, but this much I have managed to gather. Thank you for your kind reviews and story alerts. Please feel free to suggest things to happen in the story. I have an outline of the general plot arc, but other than that, I'm pretty open. Alright cool beans guys onward, forward, upward.
Kurt woke up the next morning to the sound of someone unzipping the flap of the tent. He blearily opened his eyes and saw Blaine, already dressed, climbing through the opening with two styrofoam cups of what appeared to be coffee. Kurt scooted himself up, still in his sleeping bag as he attempted to flatten his sleep rumpled hair.
"You were still sleeping when I got up so I went and got us coffee," Blaine said softly, handing Kurt one of the cups. "Not exactly Tennessee's finest. I had to get it from the vending machine, but...it's hot," he said shrugging and taking a swig from his own drink.
"I'm sure it's fine," Kurt answered, slowly clearing his head of the last bits of sleep, "thank you."
They sat quietly for a few minutes, idly sipping at their coffees until Blaine finally broke the silence, "so...we should probably talk about what happened, right?"
Kurt looked up suddenly. He knew they would have to bring it up some time, but he wasn't really expecting Blaine to blurt it out first thing in the morning. He was grateful, though, he wanted to enjoy his day with Blaine and having the weight of what had happened lying heavily between them, without it being mentioned, would definitely dampen the mood.
"That's probably sound," Kurt replied, but didn't say anything else, letting Blaine take charge of the situation.
"Let me just make one thing really clear, I don't regret what happened last night—kissing you I mean." Kurt raised his eyebrows at the way Blaine seemed to be reciting pre-written speech, but let him continue, "and I really care about you, but..."
"...but you don't want to be with me? Is that it?" Kurt cut him off, bracing himself for what he thought was sure to be rejection.
"No, no, no, that's not it at all," Blaine said putting his coffee down next to him and taking Kurt's free hand in both of his. "What I'm trying to say is that after about five years of basically being alone, I'm not very good at romance and I don't want to mess this up. Every relationship I've had before, not that there were that many, they burned hot and fast and ended the same way. I...I don't want that to happen with you. Whatever this is," Blaine said pointing between Kurt and himself, "I don't want to miss one second of it. I'm pretty sure that one day we're going to be together for real, but until then I want to spend enormous amounts of time getting to know everything there is to know about you. Sorry if this all sounds crazy."
Kurt stared wide eyed at Blaine, at this man who had in the course of about two weeks taken everything he thought he knew about his life and turned it upside down, a man who had been slowly showing Kurt a side of himself he never knew he had, but a side that Kurt really liked. "It's not crazy," Kurt finally responded. "You know for someone who claims to be bad at romance, that might be the most romantic thing that anyone has ever said to me."
Blaine laughed at that and ran his thumb absentmindedly over Kurt's knuckle, "so you're okay with that? You don't mind taking things really slowly?"
"More than okay. As long as you don't regret kissing me," Kurt teased.
"No way. I will never regret kissing you. It was an epic kiss, one I hope to repeat many times in the relatively near future."
Kurt smiled and nodded happily, "It'll be just like When Harry Met Sally, but I get to play Meg Ryan."
"Deal."
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"Are you sure you don't mind manning the booth for a bit while I go explore the fair?" Blaine asked.
"For the billionth time, Blaine, it was my idea in the first place. I'll be fine. Go have fun. I know you've been dying to go talk to that whittler for the past three hours."
If it was possible, the Knoxville Country Art Fair was even more crowded than the day before. A spike in the temperature and the impressive sunshine were likely to blame and the park was bustling. Kurt and Blaine barely had time to talk since the booth was busy, but they were content with shy smiles in between costumers and gentle hands on each other's backs when they were squeezing past each other in the small space. Blaine had insisted that Kurt get to explore the day before, while he manned the booth alone, and Kurt was dead set on returning the favor.
"Well, if you're sure." Blaine said, standing up from his stool and making his way around the table, "I won't be long."
Kurt took Blaine's absence as his cue to go into full on salesman mode. As he should have anticipated, given his personality, Blaine was a total pushover when if came to sales. He often knocked the price down if someone seemed to really like it and he was prone to let family's with children have some of his small, clay menageries for free. Kurt was glad that he had such a way with kids and admired his kindness, but Blaine tended to sell his work short so as not to appear pushy or immodest. Since Kurt didn't make any of it he felt free to be as pushy and immodest as possible.
"It's gorgeous, isn't it?" Kurt asked a woman with a salt and pepper bun who was inspecting a delicately painted teapot with a Japanese tea house scene on it.
"Yes it's lovely. I was thinking that my daughter might like it as a house warming present." The woman responded, "is this all yours?"
Kurt shook his head, "No, the artist stepped out for a bit. All of this is an artist by the name of Blaine Anderson."
"And he does the sculpting and the painting?"
"Everything from start to finish, by hand," Kurt boasted. "And you know that teapot has a set of matching cups and dishes for milk and sugar. I bet your daughter would love the whole set."
The woman thought for a moment and looked thoughtfully at the rest of the set that Kurt had brought out to the front. "You know, you're right. I think I take everything."
"That's wonderful! I'll just wrap that up for you." Thinking quickly, Kurt pulled out some tissue paper and one of the legal pads that Blaine kept by the table. "Would you like to put your name on his email list so that he can let you know where he'll be next?"
"Yes, I'd love to. His work is exquisite." The woman jotted down her email address as Kurt wrapped up her new tea set and then she was off with a wave.
Over the course of the next twenty minutes, Kurt's enthusiasm sold three more vases, an entire set of mugs, and had managed to get ten more emails for his impromptu list. Kurt was tidying the table between customers when he saw Blaine coming back towards the booth with two giant ice cream cones and a smile taking over his face.
"I got us ice cream!" he shouted excitedly. "It's finally spring and we can eat ice cream outside!"
"I can see that," Kurt said smiling back indulgently. "What flavors did you get?"
"Well for me I got chocolate and for the beauty running my booth for me I got pistachio."
Kurt blushed a little at the compliment, but quickly recovered. It didn't take much for Kurt to get used to Blaine's flirty manner, now that they had established their mutual affection, "Pistachio's my favorite. How'd you guess."
Blaine looked a little sheepish, "Err...I didn't guess. I uh...overheard you telling Johnny that you and your Dad used to go out for pistachio cones every Sunday during the summer. Sorry...if that's overstepping."
"No, of course not," Kurt said reaching for his ice cream, "I think it's sweet." Blaine's good mood instantly returned and he playfully stole a lick of Kurt's cone.
"Hey, wait a second," Blaine said pausing his snacking, "did you sell that whole tea set, all three of my leaf pressing vases, and the firework mugs? Kurt, I was only gone for twenty minutes!"
"Yup," Kurt said with an emphasis on the 'P' sound. "Oh and I started making this." Kurt pushed the email list towards Blaine."
"And what might 'this' be?"
"It's an email list, silly. Frankly, I don't understand how you've made it this far without one. How do you expect your adoring fans to know where you're going to be peddling your wares?"
"I guess I never really thought about it..."
"Blaine, can I be really honest with you, because it comes from a place of caring? You're amazing. You're art is breathtaking, but your sales could use a little work," Kurt said putting it mildly. "That's why you need someone who can manage your online newsletter and come with you to fairs to make the hard sells."
Blaine gave Kurt an amused smile, "any who do you suppose I get for such a job?"
"Me, of course!" Kurt exclaimed, but then backed down a bit. "I mean only if you want to. I don't want to step on your toes."
Blaine laughed at Kurt's change in demeanor, "Now who's being silly? I would be honored to have you as my manager. I was serious when I said I wanted to know everything there is to know about you. I'll take any excuse to spend more time with you and you can clearly get the job done," Blaine said gesturing to the severely diminished stock pile of pottery."
"Great, this will be so much fun," Kurt said, clapping his hand in the way that Blaine had come to associate with excitement on the other man's part. "I don't want to change your style. I love how much of a softy you can be, but I won't be afraid to brag about how amazing you are. Now there are two hours left until closing, let's get rid of the rest of this, shall we?"
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Kurt and Blaine spent the car ride home continuing their question game from the night before and singing along to Blaine's iPod. They stayed on basically neutral subjects since they had both had enough intense conversations for one weekend, but it was nice to learn more details about each other's lives. Kurt leaned that Blaine's favorite ice cream was anything chocolate, but that he had a particular soft spot for Ben and Jerry's Phish Food. Blaine learned that in his senior year college Kurt and his three housemates had wallpapered an entire wall with magazine cutouts of hot men. They had dubbed it the "Sexy Wall" and left it up when they moved out to be appreciated by the next tenants.
They returned back to Moon Shadow in time for Kurt to have his turn picking for movie night and the two Freed's, Kurt, and Blaine settled down in the living room to watch Some Like it Hot.
"I haven't seen this one in ages!" Carole exclaimed when Kurt showed her his pick. "It's one of my favorites!"
"Of course," Kurt replied, sitting next to Blaine on one of the couches. "Who can resist Tony Curtis?"
"I've actually never seen it," Blaine admitted.
"Well, nobody's perfect," Johnny said, reciting the famous final line of the movie.
The movie was hilarious, but Kurt was exhausted from the weekend away and allowed himself to be lulled asleep by the familiar lines. By the end his legs were curled up beneath him and his head was lying on Blaine's shoulder.
"Well we're going to head up to bed," Johnny said pulling Carole up off the couch by the hand, "You okay getting him back to bed?"
"We'll be fine," Blaine said quietly, so as not to wake Kurt.
"I'm sure you will," Carole said winking over her shoulder and following Johnny up the stairs.
"Wake up sleepy head," Blaine whispered as he shook Kurt awake. "It's time to go to sleep. You have to get up for school tomorrow."
Kurt's eyes blinked open slowly, a tiny, tired frown gracing his lips, "The movie's over?" he asked, voice still thick with sleep.
"Yup, you fell asleep about an hour in."
"Oh. Sorry, I didn't mean to," Kurt said stretching his arms above his head and yawning.
"No need to apologize," Blaine said. "Now let me walk you to Earth Shag."
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There was a slightly awkward moment at the door of Kurt's hut when the two were about to part for the first time that weekend, but it was broken by Kurt pulling Blaine into a tight hug.
"Thank you, Kurt, for this weekend. I had a really amazing time." Blaine said when they finally broke the hug.
"I did too," Kurt said, deciding to repeat Zippy's words from earlier in the week. "I really think this is the start of something great."
