"That was amazing," Blaine tells Kurt after glee. They didn't have a chance to speak during practice, but Kurt had sat smugly next to him.
"I know," Kurt says. His fingers dance through his bangs. "I meant every word of it."
Blaine shifts his satchel-strap on his shoulder, barring himself for the next inquiry. "You didn't do this because you still feel guilty, right?" He thinks of Kurt holding his hand in school hallway – albeit empty— the other day. He thinks of this now: Kurt singing in front of other people, Kurt acknowledging their relationship, Kurt joining glee club. These are all actions Kurt had hurdled himself against before.
"I did it because I wanted to be brave as you think I am," Kurt says.
"You don't have to prove anything to me."
"I do have something to prove to me though…" Kurt looks at the ceiling before back at Blaine, "You don't think I find you inspiring? You brave? You, the guy who's faced worse than me and is able to go on living, not hiding who you are?"
"You make it sound like more than it is," Blaine says, not thinking.
Kurt tilts his head and smirks in a friendly way. "My, how the tables have turned."
…
"You're one of us now."
Kurt squints up at Blaine. "What's that supposed to mean? And why are you smiling so big?"
"Come sit at the glee table," Blaine says.
Kurt looks past Blaine's shoulder at the glee club members crowded tightly around a single table in the lunchroom. "I don't think so," he says.
"So you're just going to sit here by yourself?"
"Worked so far."
"What's wrong?" Blaine asks.
"Why doesn't something have to be wrong," Kurt says very quickly, and very betraying that something is wrong. Blaine waits and Kurt tells without any prompting. "Being in the glee club means I can sing. It doesn't mean I'm their friend."
"You think they don't want you at their table?"
"I know it," Kurt says.
"I want you there," Blaine says. "Mercedes wants you there. We're part of the glee club."
"Exceptions to the rule," Kurt says snidely.
Blaine sits down across from Kurt, getting down to eye level. "What's really stopping you?" he asks, voice quieter. It's the quiet that allows Kurt to speak. When Kurt has to yell to be heard, he's not nice about it. When someone cares to give him the space and time, he might let out a grain of truth.
"They don't like me," Kurt says, tone a little higher than normal.
"They don't know you," Blaine says in return. He spans his arm across the width of the table and brushes his fingertips across the top of Kurt's wrist. It's a little, physical reassurance when Kurt has gotten all un-assured. "Give them a try."
Kurt's shoulders shift from tight-across and raised to a more natural slump. He's putting down his fight stance. "I'll give it a try." As Blaine beams, Kurt makes sure to rush on some addendums, "But it doesn't mean everyday and it doesn't mean I won't get up and leave if I ever feel like it."
Blaine knows this all means yes. Kurt picks up his lunch, half set out but none eaten yet, and follows Blaine over to the table glee club had infested this lunch period. Kurt has none of the then enthusiasm that Blaine had in his practically skipping steps.
Mercedes smiles up at Kurt's arrival, and nudges out the chair next to hers. Blaine rushes through the lunch line so he can get his food and get back to the table before anything explodes without him there to play referee or buffer. He's not sure which is more relevant. Probably both. Definitely both. Both is good.
When he returns, the spot exactly across from Kurt is clear for Blaine, and Blaine takes it without hesitance. With the glee club growing, it was getting crowded at their table, especially when everyone decided to eat together, like today.
Mercedes is having a one-way conversation with Kurt as is hunched over his food, like he was trying to spout a turtle shell out of his back to hide under. Blaine nudges Kurt's foot under the table with his own. Kurt gives him a waning smile.
The three of them – Blaine, Mercedes, and Kurt – make small conversation between snacking on their food. Blaine wills someone else to engage Kurt (just not Santana, because that would probably end with an insult showdown, or murder) so Kurt wouldn't feel proved in his unwantedness. Perhaps Blaine should have preplanned, convinced one of his glee mates to be a welcoming committee, but that would have been disingenuous.
Blaine catches Mike looking down their end of the table (he's the second spot down from Mercedes with Tina being the only person between the two). Blaine gives him a pleading look, dipping his eyebrows in exaggeration.
Mike clears his throat, and Blaine contains his fist pump of victory. "Hey… Kurt." Mike leans forward on his elbows. Kurt slants his eyes over to Mike, and Blaine can read the wariness in them. "How do you like glee so far?" Mike almost winces at how inane the question is. But Blaine is okay with it. It's safe, polite, an icebreaker.
"I've only been to one practice," Kurt says. "So… it's tolerable."
Rachel 'hmmph's loudly from diagonally across from Mike. Oh, Rachel, she could be incendiary too.
It's wasn't in Kurt's nature to back down. Or, at the very least, it wasn't in the way Kurt guarded himself to back down.
Kurt looks right at Rachel, who is picking at a salad and has her nose up in the air, and says, "You have something to say?"
It's a gauntlet being thrown down. The entire table is paying attention. People like Tina, Mike, Mercedes, and Sam look worried. Santana, and to a lesser extent Puck, look excited for a throw down. Brittany looks confused as always.
"I was just thinking," Rachel says sharply, "That I didn't expect someone like you to appreciate the immense importance of what we're doing in New Directions."
"Someone like me?" Kurt's goading and serious at the same time. Blaine's sure he can do nothing to stop this. Even if he managed to distract Kurt away from this confrontation now, it would happen sooner or later.
"A slacker," Rachel says in a vicious, hushed tone like it's the worst kind of slur.
Kurt freezes for a second. A wrinkle of confusion forms on his brow. This is surely not what he expected. Kurt is used to all manner of insults ranging from him being gay to him being somewhat effeminate to him being a delinquent.
"Do you know," Rachel says, "How much effort I put into cultivating my talent? How much time I put into this glee club, so that we can be winners? You know what winners do?" Her eyes are wild wide. "They get into the best performing arts colleges. They become stars. You know who doesn't become stars?"
"Slackers," Kurt says with an eye roll, cutting off her rant.
Rachel sucks in a breath.
"You don't know anything about me," Kurt says.
"I know that you skip class all the time. I know that you get detention so much they make you meet with Miss Pillsbury. I know you lit someone on fire," Rachel machine guns off.
"I've never lit anyone on fire," Kurt grits out. "But I sure see the appeal."
Someone snorts in laughter.
"Tina!" Rachel says aghast.
"I'm sorry," Tina says, hand half-covering her mouth. "It was funny."
"It was a good burn," Santana agrees, eyeing Kurt with approval. Blaine pounders something worse than Kurt and Santana fighting would be Kurt and Santana joining forces.
Artie laughs this time, because, pun.
"What did you use to say, Puck, back when you first joined glee club, about Rachel and fire?" Tine says.
"Oh," Puck's eyebrows shoot up. "I used to say that Rachel made me want to light myself on fire."
"Noah," Rachel snaps.
Puck puts his hands up in defense. "That was before we ever made out." ("Gross," Santana commentates.) "Now, I've gotten used to you. And can tune you out when necessary." He actually sounds like he's trying to be nice.
Rachel looks ready to melt concrete.
Tina steps in again, abnormally talkative. "I want win Nationals and become a star as much as like everyone else at the table. Kurt hasn't done anything to compromise that. And he's an amazing singer. So give him a break before you go all Rachel Berry crazy on him."
Rachel stands, her chair screeching back. She pats down her skirt, picks up her tray, and walks snappily away.
Everyone at the table gives each other 'not again' looks, a bit bemused or otherwise annoyed. It's a look Kurt is not privy too.
Mercedes pats Kurt on the shoulder. "You just witnessed your first Rachel Berry walk out. Welcome to New Directions."
"Don't mind Rachel that much," Tina says, leaning a little across Mercedes to talk to Kurt, "I think she's a little jealousy at how well you were singing Broadway. That's kind of her thing."
Thankfully Rachel shows up at glee club so no one has to go out and woo her into returning. She does however, sing "Maybe This Time" for all and dedicates it to her unappreciated leadership skills. She is appeased with moderate applause and Mr. Schue saying, "Well, that was… impassioned, Rachel, thank you."
Afterwards, as they share their walk to the parking lot, Blaine asks Kurt, "So, second glee practice down, any more than tolerable?"
Kurt huffs. "It's even stranger than I expected it to be."
…
From Blaine to Kurt: Are you working today?
From Kurt to Blaine: No. I'm spending the afternoon in.
Fifteen minutes later Blaine is at Kurt's front door, knocking. Kurt opens with a puzzled expression with what looks like pieces of tin foil folded into the front of his hair.
"What are you doing here?" Kurt asks.
"Surprise?" Blaine tries. Kurt steps back, allowing Blaine entrance. "What are you…?" Blaine asks, pointing at the foil.
"Re-dying the pink," Kurt says. "Do you think it grows in that way?" Kurt tugs up the zipper on his hoodie jacket almost throat high, and it draws attention to what he's trying to hide, what had been the bare skin of his chest peaking out in the gap.
"You can't pull a shirt over your hair when you have bleach and dye in it," Kurt mumble-explains.
"Do you want me to go?" Blaine asks.
"You don't have to go," Kurt mumbles even lower. Kurt leads Blaine to his room to wait through the countdown until Kurt can rinse the dye out.
When Kurt's phone chirps its alarm Kurt stretches up from the bed. "I'll be right back." Blaine gets up too. Kurt pegs him with a look. "It's not that interesting."
"I've never seen hair get dyed before," Blaine says, which is true but not why he wants to follow. He came here to be around Kurt.
Kurt saunters down the hall to the bathroom. "Do you need any help?" Blaine asks as he follows Kurt in.
"You realize I'm going to take my top off," Kurt says instead of an answer.
"Do you want me to go?" Blaine asks for a second time, somehow here more heated. He remembers this bathroom well, being shirtless here and Kurt passing him clothes to borrow through the gap in the door.
Blaine has, of course, been in this bathroom since. But not with Kurt. Why would he?
Kurt leans back against the sink, says himself again, "You don't have to go."
Kurt puts on some plastic gloves to protect his fingers then peels the foil away from his dye-covered hair. Blaine waits by the door.
"You can help," Kurt says to him.
Blaine stands up straight, ready. "How?"
Kurt fiddles with his zipper pull. "Rinse out my hair?"
Kurt tells Blaine to sit on the edge of the tub by the faucet, and that he should probably roll his sleeves up. Blaine takes his cardigan completely off instead, leaving him in a clinging polo. Kurt strips out of his hoodie, hanging over the towel rack, avoiding Blaine's eyes as he does so.
Kurt sits on the floor, propped up over the edge of the tub. He tilts his head back, eyes gently closed. Blaine tries not to stare too much, like at how Kurt's pale skin stretches from neck to waistband or at how the lightest freckles are speckled across his shoulders, or at his belly button.
"Go on," Kurt says.
Blaine plays with the tub facet until he gets a stream of water that is comfortably lukewarm. He fills a cup that Kurt had tossed to him earlier. He pours the water at the Kurt's hairline, and it runs back over his hair, dribbling into the tub tinged the color of bubblegum.
He fills and pours a second cupful, chasing his fingers through Kurt's hair after like a comb. Kurt shivers, and says, eyes still closed, "You're going to get pink fingers."
"I don't care," Blaine says. He repeats the steps again and again, until the water that drips out off of Kurt is clear. He repeats it afterwards, again, anyway.
Kurt eyes peak open. He catches Blaine hand with his own as Blaine is still combing it through Kurt hair.
"That's enough," he says, voice raspy. Blaine nods, throat stuck.
"Pass me a towel," Kurt whispers. Blaine follows the command. Kurt spends a minute or two tousle drying his hair. It's a mess when he's done. Kurt drops the towel to the bathroom floor, moves to sit on the edge of the tub too, and presses a long kiss to Blaine's mouth.
Blaine's hands fly to Kurt's sides, where they meet the soft of his skin. He needs to feel more. So pulls Kurt in closer, running his palms up Kurt's back. All of Kurt's shyness has dissolved.
Kurt tugs at the fabric of Blaine's shirt, edging it inches up. Blaine gets the idea, detaches himself enough from Kurt, only temporary and with great reward, to get his polo up and over his head.
The sensation of torso against torso, skin again skin, Kurt's blunt fingernails raking is so much, they liquefy into it. It's all quick, all passion, little thought. It's all soul crushes against soul at some point, any physical feelings just a gateway to what it means to be so close to someone, like you could meld into someone, become one.
"Hey, Kurt, you home?" yells a voice from downstairs, and it's like a gong waking them back to consciousness. Blaine slips right off of the edge of the tub onto the floor – a thankfully small drop. Kurt falls the other way, towards inside the tub, but he catches himself against the wall with an out sprung arm.
"Shit," Kurt swears, then yell-replies to his father, voice squeaking, "Yes!"
"Is Blaine here?" Burt asks hesitantly.
Kurt squeezes his eyes shut in a sort of wince. He clears his throat before answering more clearly but with more resignation, "Yes."
A floorboard squeaks. Burt says, "I'm just going to… stay downstairs for a few minutes."
Kurt groans, "Oh my God."
Blaine pulls himself up from the floor as Kurt stands, and the bathroom seems too small for the both of them. Kurt inches around Blaine to the towel rack where his hoodie hangs still.
"Put your shirt on," Kurt says as he puts on his hoodie. "And make sure you don't look like we've been fooling around."
Blaine scoops up his half inside out polo from the floor. "We have been fooling around."
"I mean the fully euphemistic fooling around." Kurt zips up his hoodie sharply.
Kurt's hair is a mess anyway, but he takes a moment in front of the mirror to tame the still damp locks. Kurt's hands hadn't messed up Blaine's slicked over do. Both of them had been more interested in new explorations than each other's hair.
"You buttoned it wrong," says Kurt before either of them exit the bathroom. Kurt stands close enough to hear him breathe as he corrects the buttons of Blaine's cardigan.
"There." Kurt smoothes his hand down the front, "Perfect."
…
A few days later, Kurt tells Blaine, "My dad gave me the talk because of that bathroom incident. It was horrifying."
"We should probably come up with another name for it than the 'bathroom incident.' That sounds potentially gross."
"Well, 'bathroom incident' is more concise than 'surprise shirtless makeout incident'." Kurt says casually.
It's amazing, even if they are both simultaneously blushing, there is no hiding or running from the facts here. An improvement, Blaine thinks. A conscious step forward. Yet again.
He hopes to take many more steps with Kurt.
…
Of course, first came repeating that step they had previously experimented with. It's over a week past the 'bathroom incident' before they had the time and privacy to make out again. They are in Kurt's bedroom (Kurt's house is closer to school and Blaine's Mom worked from home a whole lot, thus Kurt's bedroom became the default best place for such shenanigans).
They're limbs are knotted together as they are half leaned across the bed. Kurt's fingers grip hard at Blaine's waist, and Blaine likes the almost sting of them. Any tighter and those fingers might cause bruising, but now they were just the right amount of squeeze. It's like Kurt's not willing to let him go.
Kurt does let go, but only to grip his fingers in the sides of Blaine's shirt instead. The action, intentionally or not, pulls the hem of Blaine's polo untucked. Kurt's thumb brushes down, contacting with the tiniest sliver of skin exposed above his waistband for the tiniest second.
Kurt sets his forehead against Blaine as he eases out of a heavy kiss. "Do you want to…?"
There is no need to fill in the details.
Dazed from being so drunk on intimacy with Kurt, Blaine blinks hard. "Should we talk about this?" he says. Isn't that the proper way for a boyfriend to be? To make sure everything is above board on what they are doing or are willing to do?
Kurt giggles. It's like ectasy to Blaine's ears.
"I knew you would say that," Kurt says. He leans back from Blaine, letting go of his hold on Blaine's shirt. He's sitting up on his knees now. Blaine pops up onto his elbows, watching Kurt.
"We don't need to have a big conversation about this. If you don't want to, say no, say it's too fast. I'll respect that. It wouldn't hurt my feelings," Kurt says, all genuine, no snark. "And I'm not asking for anything more right now. Just you and me, doing what we just left off."
"Shirtless," Blaine elaborates.
"Do you want me to be shirtless?" Kurt asks coyly.
"Do you want to be shirtless?" Blaine turns it around. Kurt had focused his speech on Blaine not being pressured into anything. Blaine wants to make sure Kurt feels the same way. No pressure.
Kurt crosses his arms in front of himself, grabs his shirt hem, and pulls his shirt off in a singular move that had to have been practiced it was so sexily perfect.
Blaine let's his eyes linger. Last time had been rushed in the heat of the moment. Now was a moment Blaine was being invited to look. Kurt's lean and pale-skinned. He's nice to look at. He's not a Calvin Klien ad, and neither is Blaine, but who is, and Blaine doesn't care anyway. Kurt is one of a kind.
"You're beautiful," Blaine says. A fleeting expression, Kurt rolls his eyes. Blaine catches it. He resituates himself on his knees too, and leans in. "You need to stop disbelieving my compliments."
How many years had Kurt lived without a kind word, that now when Blaine gave them freely Kurt couldn't believe them? Maybe it wasn't enough to say. Maybe it needed to be shown.
Blaine presses his lips softly against Kurt's, sucking his bottom lip in-between his briefly before pulling back enough to then kiss along Kurt's jaw, and more, down his neck. Kurt arches into Blaine's affections, a heavy breathe in place of words.
Blaine rings a forearm around Kurt's back, dipping back flat onto the bed as he continued his mouth lower: across Kurt's collar bone, down the center of his chest, wandering across his abdomen, a trail of light kisses.
He gets as low as he dares, then props his chin up on Kurt's belly button. "You're beautiful," he says.
Kurt's fingers graze through Blaine's hair, where they can catch. A scratchy-voiced Kurt demands, "Get up here." Blaine obliges.
Kurt smashes his mouth against Blaine's. There is absolutely no technique to it, but the pure want of it is appreciated. His hand is planted against Blaine's cheek. He uses it to hold Blaine there when he pulls away, staring eye-to-eye with him in a way that is too close to focus. Neither wants to draw back further.
"You always say such nice things to me," Kurt says. "I want you to know that I think you are so charming and so handsome. I don't know how I got so lucky. You're a dream."
Blaine turns his head in Kurt's hold so he can kiss Kurt's palm. Kurt curls his hand in like he's trying to catch it, hold it, contain it forever. He drops his hand down to Blaine's side, his thumb catching the side seam of Blaine's shirt, but he doesn't pull at it now.
Blaine sits up just enough to start taking off his shirt.
"You don't have to—" Kurt starts.
"I want to," Blaine says, assured.
In his haste, Blaine gets caught in his own sleeve, making Kurt snicker. He's going to have to practice this. Or maybe have Kurt help him take it off next time. (And perhaps he can take off Kurt's, if Kurt's willing to risk Blaine's clumsiness.)
Still sitting up, Blaine says, "We are going to have to have that long conversation at some point."
"I'm sure you'll make sure it happens," Kurt says back.
Blaine settles down again, lying next to Kurt. It's reminiscent to that day that feels so long past where they napped together. Of course, this moment is also a million ways different, because Kurt is flush against him, his palms running up and down as they explored exposed skin, and Kurt's tongue is in his mouth as they make out in a comfortable, lazy speed.
AN: 1) I missed updating last week because I was behind on writing this fic. I'm still behind , but here we are... there's enough for an update. 2) I actually wrote that kissing scene before the klaine kissing scene in New New York. idk if that's important. 3) Rachel is absurdly fun to write. I feel like it may have looked like I hate Rachel in this chapter, but, no, she's just absurdly over the top, and I enjoy writing that.