content warning: explicit sexual content, strong language, smoking
Chapter 14: White Noise
The goal of sex, as I've understood it, is to get off, so I've never asked myself how long it's physically possible to fuck without coming.
I really should have.
The morning sun is coming in through the curtains, giving Kurt's skin a golden glow. A drop of sweat rolls down his chest, crossing his flat stomach as his hips move in a slow, steady rhythm. My eyelids flutter shut as I push up to meet him, heated pleasure prickling up and down my spine.
"Fuck," I sigh helplessly. His hands land on my chest, running upwards, my skin burning up at the touch. He is biting on his lower lip, muffling a groan as he slowly, slowly rides me, his weight on me. My toes get tangled up in the sheets.
God, he has no idea how good he's making me feel.
"Hotel nights," he manages, breathing in deep and unevenly. His cock is proudly erected and leaking, the tip shiny. I have no idea how good I'm making him feel.
I close my fingers around his wrist, feeling his rapid pulse through the skin, like his heart is going for the world record. "Thank god for those," I groan, feeling his hips come down, him sinking onto my cock. We both cry out without meaning to. Fuck.
I try to tug him down by his wrist, but he shakes his head, eyes closing and face flashing with pleasure like he can't focus on anything else right now besides the way our bodies are connected. He rolls his hips as I fuck up into him, and an involuntary moan escapes from my lips.
"God, I love hearing you," he breathes, and only then do I become aware of all the moans and gasps I'm completely failing to muffle. I know I'm the grunt-when-climax guy usually, but this? How could anyone keep quiet during this? Thanks to a fuck up or another, my hotel room is on a different floor than the others' – of course we had to make use of it.
My hands move to rest on his thighs, nails digging in. I held his hips at first, determining the speed and depth, enjoying the way he whimpered and gasped when I got the angle right, but then I forgot to keep it up. He's got an amazing sense of rhythm, though. I've seen him play the drums a few times, so I shouldn't be surprised. Now we've figured out our own speed, and there are no seams in it – it's a breathtaking, brain-melting, fluid movement that has his chest flushed and sweat rolling down my hairline.
"I'm gonna die," Kurt informs me in a half-moan, a dirty "ah" escaping his lips when my cock pushes in as deep as it can go. His breaths are short, shaky gasps. He twitches. "God, right there- Oh fuck, ohfuck," he slurs, the muscles of his stomach quivering, fingernails scratching my chest.
He keeps up the rhythm, angle and depth, clearly driving himself insane. I bite on my lower lip so as not to grunt, my other hand moving to my hair, like that will somehow help keep my head on. It works somehow, pulling on my own hair. It helps coordinate everything, deal with the sensations rattling through me. My hips buck up, pushing into him, and he's so tight.
He slows down the pace. He is heaving, cheeks rosy and pupils blown. I had given up hope that he'd fucking kiss me when he leans down to do just that. I instantly attach my lips to his. The kiss is salty; sweat has pooled onto his upper lip. He whimpers against my mouth.
I thought we'd come back to my room for a quick fuck, not that we'd end up having an inhumanely long fuck session. Bottled up energy from quick handjobs before shows, clearly, as discretion is proving to be the same as celibacy. Right now, I'm not complaining.
I'm drowning, not needing air as we kiss. He begins to pull back, but I place both hands to the back of his head and pull him back in. He groans – in objection at first, then in pleasure. My tongue pushes into his mouth, dirty and wet, tracing his taste, while I try to take a hold of his damp hair, only managing to let the short strands sweep through my fingers. He kisses back hungrily, his leaking cock twitching against my stomach.
I run one hand over his shoulder blades and down his spine. The skin is slick with sweat, and I can feel his bones beneath the skin. I cup his ass, reaching further until my fingers find the place where I disappear into his body, where he's stretched and filled. Kurt jerks as my fingers explore the area that's wet from lube, around the base of my hard dick that's buried in him. I try to press in the tip of my middle finger.
Kurt breaks the kiss, choking on his breath. His eyes are wide but dark. "I'm gonna come if you do that," he whispers, voice trembling.
I lick my lips slowly. So he could take it. "Good."
He presses our foreheads together, trying to catch his breath. "Let me. Just this once."
I pull my hand back, silently bending to his will. I always make him come first. I don't feel comfortable finishing up before he's been pushed over the edge, maybe because I don't trust myself to care enough to relieve him after my own release. But if he wants to switch roles this once, then okay. Fuck, I can't hold back much longer, anyway.
Kurt straightens up, keeping one hand on my chest for balance. His pupils look more blown than I've ever seen them.
He picks up a steady, torturing pace. I place my hands on his hips, thumbs tracing the hipbones sticking through the skin as he moves. There's an angry, red mark on the other one from where I bit him earlier when we were pulling each other's clothes off. I press my thumb against the bruise, and Kurt's breathing hitches. His head rolls back as he rides me a bit harder now. He sounds so dirty, and god, he's so responsive.
Now I know why he said he was going to die. If not that, I'm going to pass out. The pleasure is fucking overwhelming. My hands grip his hips because I desperately need something to hold onto. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he's got me right where he wants me.
"You still with me?" Kurt's voice asks, swallowing hard. The pace is steadily increasing, the way he comes down and the way I push up. He's got his other hand slowly stroking his flushed, leaking cock. God, he's so hard from fucking himself on me. My hips have now resorted to irregular and uncoordinated thrusts, a sporadic response to the stimulation that is making me see stars.
"Uh huh," I manage.
The sun that is shining through the windows catches my eyes, blinding me for a second. There was a party after the show, and we didn't get back to the hotel until four in the morning, Kurt not able to slip away from his and Mason's shared room immediately, and since we're clearly pushing for a record here, the sun has caught up with us.
Not the dimly lit back lounge or the fluorescent lights of a backstage bathroom. I see him perfectly in the gentle light of dawn and can't look away.
He's now letting himself slam down, loud groans escaping. "Oh god, oh god," he groans, fisting himself harder. The muscles of his thighs are trembling by my sides.
My head slams into the pillow. My body feels electric, every inch of my skin sensitive to the touch. "Kurt, I can't –"
"That's okay, that's okay," he hurries to say, but he doesn't get it, how I can't contain it anymore, how I'm breaking apart beneath him. My hands run up his thighs restlessly, brushing his stomach and chest, running over the hand he has on his cock. He groans at the back of his throat, a hint of desperation in it.
"Shit," I gasp breathlessly.
The bed creaks loudly, and he places one hand where my ribs end, heel pressing into the skin as he rides me. His cock disappears and reappears from his fist. My hands move to the sheets where they gather up balls of fabric, closing into fists around them, squeezing as hard as possible.
My entire body vibrates, short, nearly panicked breaths escaping from my lips as he moves. There are levels of pleasure, and in the middle are the ones that are shades of red, lighter and then darker, and when you hit the really dark reds, you come. But if you don't, the red fades into black, and then turns to grey, and there, at the top of this mountain of ecstasy you had no idea fucking existed, it all turns white: white noise, white electricity, white pleasure.
"Kurt," I rush out, trying to breathe, but the fire that's been circling in my veins has now found its way to my throat, cutting off air. It's heading for the finish line, soaring forwards with incredible speed. I can taste blood from how hard I'm biting on my lower lip. Kurt sinks down onto my cock, tight and hot and fast, and he's trembling, riding me, touching himself, slick and fiery, moaning and shaking, and I can't take it.
A soaring fills my ears, white, white noise, and Kurt never stops moving, but keeps slamming down, and his voice sounds distant and it's hard to make out the words from the explosion of pleasure, but it sounds like a rushed, "Fuck, fuck, that's it – Come on, B – God, I can feel you –"
Something drops heavy in me, not just the mind-blowing orgasm that rattles through me, reorganizing my molecules, and it's not the white noise, white noise, white noise. It's his hands on my chest, the way there is only him and then nothing, and I am diving into it deeper and deeper. Fuck, it just goes on, and when I know I physically can't have more semen to empty inside him, I keep coming.
My eyes flutter open, catching the way his hips roll down, my cock disappearing into him. Both of his hands are pressed against my chest for balance. He slams down and comes. He's not touching himself, but he pushes down on me and comes, cock twitching, fingernails digging into my chest, mouth dropping open as he rushes out, "Oh god, oh god, yes, yes –" and then it stops being words and turns into the filthiest moan I've ever heard, erupting deep from his chest, low, masculine and helpless. His muscles squeeze around me, and I curse blindly as air escapes my lungs. His come hits my chest and stomach, warm and wet, oozing white. It's all white.
I've never known why it's called a little death. Suddenly, I do.
His movements come to an eventual stop when we've both finished. His cock is still pulsating against my stomach, his muscles still quivering around my own. I feel drained. Absolutely fucking drained.
Kurt rolls off of me, crashing onto the bed unceremoniously. I blink at the ceiling. It's white.
Our loud, uneven breaths fill the air, sounding like we've just finished a marathon. It takes a while for me to realize that, if I want to see him, I need to move my head, which proves to be challenging when my motor skills seem to have paralyzed. I finally manage to turn my head to the side a little.
Kurt's got one hand over his face, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows hard, light brown hair sticking out everywhere. His chest is flushed red, a sheen of sweat on his lean body, drops of semen catching the sunlight right where his pubic hair starts. Mine or his? No idea.
I close my eyes and try to pull myself together. "So you, like... came without touching yourself," I observe shakily, having difficulty speaking. He lets out an agreeing sound. I taste blood in my mouth. "I didn't know that was possible."
"Me neither," he laughs, and then he's just laughing, covering his eyes, mouth in a wide grin. I blink. He's fucking insane.
His come is cooling on my skin unpleasantly, and I wipe it off the best I can, drying my hand on the sheets. My hand is shaking. I flex my fingers, staring at the long digits in astonishment. Still trembling. My brain has been reduced to mush, and my insides feel like they've swollen, like there is something inside me that is too huge for my body to contain. It's definitely not helping with the shaking and how I might've just had the best orgasm of my life.
"Are you alright?" Kurt asks me, and I flinch. He looks at me curiously, moving to sit on his knees next to me. I hate him for being able to move already. My hand inches to one of his knees, and it seems to help with the trembling. Not enough, though. He stares at me in wonder. "You're shaking."
"I'm not."
"You are."
Kurt gazes down at me, his eyes full of depth that reveals nothing. He smiles when I least expect it, probably telling himself a silent joke that he is leaving me out of. He doesn't lie down. I know he's not going to snuggle up against me, that we won't start trading slow kisses. We don't do that after we've come. This morning, the post-sex routine will probably involve him getting dressed and sneaking back to his room while Mason's still asleep.
My heart rate has slowly come back down, and my hands have stopped shaking. Kurt's still looking at me, like he's waiting for something.
"I don't wanna sleep," I sigh.
"You're not tired after that?"
"No," I lie. I'm fucking exhausted, but I don't want to sleep. "Let's go somewhere. Do something. We've got time before bus call, right?"
He nods even as he lifts an eyebrow. "It's seven in the morning. On a Thursday."
"And?"
"And we're in Omaha," he points out. Fair point. "Pretty much the only thing worth doing is fucking or sleeping."
"I find your negative attitude harmful for the team spirit," I tell him, giving his knee a quick tap before rolling out of bed. "Come on. We're going."
He falls back onto the bed dramatically. "You're gonna be the death of me."
"So you said," I smirk, pulling my boxers on, my knees wobbly and legs weak. Fuck, Kurt will be the death of me if we're gonna be fucking like that on a regular basis. The feeling of the orgasm lingers, still clouding my thoughts and leaving my body wrecked. It feels like some part of me is giving up or giving into something.
I plan to go down fighting.
Kurt has turned to lie on his stomach, and I trace his naked form, the milky white skin, my eyes skimming over the roundness of his ass. His breathing begins to even out threateningly, so I lean over to give his behind a sturdy slap. He jerks awake. "Ow!"
He turns back around, glaring, and I snatch a shirt from my open suitcase and throw it on. "Come with me."
"You're such a whiny ass," he grumbles bitterly, and I choose to ignore him.
The only reason why I'm putting up with that attitude instead of throwing him out of my hotel room is because we just had amazing sex. He's lucky he's so talented in that department.
When we head for the door, both of us dressed and presentable, our fingers brush together.
Once outside, I stuff my hands into my pockets and cast my eyes downwards.
So he's right. There is nothing to do in Omaha at seven in the morning on a Thursday. The streets are desolated, one car driving by once every five minutes. The shops won't open for another few hours, so there is no reason for anyone to be up and about. The sun is steadily rising in the horizon, and I can already tell that it's going to be a hot day.
We've practically got the street to ourselves as we stroll down in silence. The initial tiredness has faded away from the fresh air and bright light. Kurt keeps looking at the shop fronts and street signs. "Look," he says when we pass a record shop that has copies of Boneless on display. I just shrug. Our albums are everywhere, so it's stopped being amazing.
Buy Blaine Anderson's bleeding heart for three dollars and forty-nine cents.
"Absurd what they ask for records these days, isn't it?" I point out.
"How much would you pay for it?"
"Nothing. Get it all for free, anyway," I mutter as I get out a pack of cigarettes. I offer him one, and we start smoking outside the record stop.
I picture myself walking down the street as someone who does it regularly and not as a visiting rock star who made the city's youth scream their lungs out last night. What if Nick and I hadn't met Puck at Woodstock? What if we had, but hadn't gotten a lift back to Ohio? What if we had gotten stuck here, for example? I'd probably be doing a shit job of some kind. Bus driver. Mailman. Guitar long forgotten in one corner of a shitty house. And this Thursday would be my first day off in a while, and I'd sleep in until the sun woke me up. Scratch my stomach, fry bacon and eggs. Eat in front of the TV. Get in my car, drive to a friend's house. Drink up, talk bullshit about local politics and feel mutual resentment towards the city council members in their nice cars and nice suits. Worry about the car's engine that has been letting out a wheezing sound lately, and I'd live that life not knowing what London looks like after two days of heavy rain, what it feels like to open your hotel room door to find a beautiful girl behind it, waiting and willing. I'd live not knowing any of it. I could have ended up here, ignorant but free. I could have.
Bullshit.
I would have never put the guitar down. Even now, when I know the hell it has brought me, the hell that is to come, I can't put that fucking instrument down.
I watch Kurt taking a long drag. The wind ruffles his hair.
I can't stay away from what's bad for me.
"You hungry?" he asks. "I'm famished."
I'd make a reference to our fuck fest earlier, but we don't refer to it in public. I can still taste him in my mouth, feel him beneath my fingers. The physical distance between us feels confusing somehow.
"Hotel breakfast?" he goes on to ask.
I scrunch my nose, slowly sucking on my cigarette. "Don't wanna go back yet."
"Well, there's a diner around the corner. It should be open."
"When did you become the official tour guide to Omaha?" I ask skeptically because he's pointing to a direction we didn't come from.
He flicks his cigarette to the ground and steps on it. "Probably when I used to live here."
I instantly stop smoking and stare at him, feeling my guts tie together. He doesn't notice, just nods towards the direction of this supposed diner. "Come on."
He didn't lie – there is a tiny diner just off the street we were on. It's dead as one can expect, and we both automatically choose the booth that's the furthest from the counter. Kurt orders himself pancakes, and I go for some pie. I usually have a craving for something sweet after sex, though that's a secret I'll take to the grave.
As we sip our coffees, Kurt notes, "Your lower lip is bruised."
"Yeah." I bit on it too hard. It feels swollen and sore, a hint of iron in the taste when my tongue sweeps over it. I lean back in the booth, against the red leather of the seats, as Kurt bums another cigarette off me. "So are you from Omaha?" I ask.
"No, but I lived here once," he explains, which I knew because I know where he's from. Or, well, Kitty never told me what town, but still. As far as Kurt is concerned, though, I know his first name, that he has a dead mother and sister, he lives in San Francisco and likes cock.
"When?"
He shrugs indifferently, and I insist, "No, really. When was that?"
He doesn't seem to want to talk about it, but eventually, he says, "'67, '68, I think. I don't remember for sure. You know how kids are at that age, don't pay attention to things like that."
"Your family moved around, then," I conclude. I wait for Kurt to say that no, his family wasn't with him, but he says nothing at all. I know his family wasn't with him. God, he gives nothing away, does he? What has he done and what has he seen that is so bad he won't tell anyone about it?
The way he looks at me is making me feel like he's estimating me somehow, trying to weigh me. He shakes the cigarette above the ashtray, small grey flecks floating down. "I worked at this steak house on Harney Street downtown, washing dishes every night from five p.m. to one a.m. Never seen so much grease in my life. The place actually made me a vegetarian for six months."
"Made you a what?" I frown.
"I didn't eat meat."
"That cannot be healthy," I mutter, refraining from making a joke about him loving meat in other forms, down his throat, up his ass, but then he'll get pissy and the box to Kurt's past will snap shut right before my eyes.
"It's trendy in San Francisco. I know, like, at least one guy who doesn't eat meat," he says. Yeah, well, what isn't trendy in that city?
He keeps smoking, and I catch sight of a bruise on his neck where my mouth must have attached itself at one point. I wonder what the guys will think. They'll probably assume that Kurt and Mason are fucking. But what will Mason think about Kurt disappearing for hours on end, coming back looking utterly fucked? Not that that twig of a man will be able to piece it together, but he must be suspicious.
"Plates, they're alright to wash. Spoons too. They had these steak knives with these tiny crooks that were impossible to clean, and don't even get me started on glasses," he says, shaking his head as he takes another drag. "Sparkly, sparkly. When it wasn't sparkly enough, they fired my ass. Probably just because they needed an excuse. I'm still pretty sure my boss saw me with this guy I took home one night. My fault. Should've known better. But at least they came up with an excuse. Most places haven't bothered."
The waitress brings our food, giving us suspicious looks though she refrains from commenting. It's not that she suspects that, it's just how we look with dirty hair, stubble, wrinkled clothes, eyes red from sleep deprivation. Or at least I'm speaking for myself. Kurt always manages to look stunning.
She lingers by the booth after we've mumbled thanks. Is she gonna kick us out or what?
"I'm sorry, but you're Blaine Anderson," she blurts out when I finally lift an eyebrow at her. I blink. A thirty-year-old waitress in a diner in Omaha. Wow. It's true. Everyone knows me now.
"He is," Kurt supplies easily, flashing a grin my way. Backstabbing fucker.
"I recognized you from The Rolling Stone cover," she explains nervously, now offering a napkin and a pen, "I-I hope you don't mind if –"
"Not at all," I mutter impatiently, quickly signing the napkin for her.
"Thank you!" she beams when I pass it back to her. "Oh, I- We keep a camera in the back if –"
"Maybe a bit later. We're in the middle of a conversation," I tell her flatly, pointing between myself and Kurt. She blushes furiously and stutters on her words, making a quick exit.
Kurt gives me a harsh look. "I thought you decided to be nice to the fans now."
"Fuckever. What I want to know is how you juggled high school and that job."
Kurt looks astonished, but it's sufficient enough a reason to send waitress girl on her way. Kurt is sharing, which, for the record, never happens. It's probably the post-orgasm fuzziness that's making him loosen the ropes around his past, which won't last forever.
"So?" I press on.
"I wasn't in school anymore," he says eventually, sounding slightly confused. "Who needs an education, right? God, these smell delicious." He hungrily digs into his pancakes, snubbing the cigarette on the side of the plate.
And that's him done sharing. Great.
So he never went back to school? At any point? Lucky bastard. I should've disappeared off the face of the earth at fifteen too, saving myself the torture of finishing high school. I was the weird quiet kid who barely had a mother and just hung out with that oddball Duval all the time. On the other hand, I can count to ten in French. Maybe that trade was worth it.
"I was a paper boy one summer. Saved up money to buy a guitar," I tell him quietly as I eat the tasteless apple pie.
He smiles. "Can't picture you doing anything apart from what you're doing."
I stab a piece of the pie with the fork and mumble, "I had my share of shit jobs in LA before the band kicked off. I know what... what it's like. Being in a place where you don't know anyone. Fuck, that's my life every day."
Kurt stops chewing, giving me a cautious look. "Yeah, I know it is," he nods eventually. "Can I try your pie?" He leans over to steal a piece without waiting for permission. I let him finish it off, quietly watching out of the window.
It's our day off, but we're leaving for Denver in a few hours. We took a vote and unanimously decided that we'd rather spend our extra time in Denver than Omaha. I wonder if Kurt's lived in Denver, too. Who knows with him? I don't.
"What's your last name?" I ask, causing him to flinch.
He sucks pie filling off of his thumb. "Why do you want to know?"
"I could ask Ryder, though even he probably doesn't know."
"I repeat: why do you want to know?"
"Can't I take interest in you?"
He frowns, looking genuinely puzzled. "You can. People just don't." When I keep staring, he sighs. "Cory."
I snort. "Yeah, right. You're only saying that because this place is playing Sounds of Silence and they just played that song."
Three years ago, you never would have heard that song playing in a diner early in the morning. A song in which a guy blows his brains out and where the lyrics have the word 'orgy' in them? Never. Just like Richard Cory once was, our songs are played on night-time radio as my references to sex, drugs, sex, alcohol and sex make it completely unacceptable for them to be played during the day. But give it a few years and my words will become acceptable, and then it will be my voice playing in places like these. And on the day that happens, I will blow my brains out.
Brendon smiles, leaning backwards casually. "Alright. How about Donald? Lewis. Thompson."
"Fuck off."
"Jackson, Brown, Peterson, Matt –"
"Hummel."
He stops instantly, eyes widening before his astonishment turns into anger, maybe touching upon fear somewhere in between. "Why do you ask me if you already know?" he snaps coldly, and just like that he's out of the booth and heading for the door.
I curse under my breath, digging into my pocket for change that I throw on the table. He can't fucking leave me here – I don't even know where the hell I am.
"Bye then!" the waitress calls after me nervously.
When I get outside, I just catch sight of Kurt disappearing around the corner. It's too early in the morning to be running, but I do anyway, catching up with him on the bigger street that is still just as dead as it was before. "Does bad temper run in the family?" I call to his back.
Kurt comes to an abrupt stop, swirling around. "I don't have time to play your fucking games!" he barks, eyes flashing angrily. I remain unaffected. "Are you snooping around? Are you spying on me? And what business of yours is it?!"
"It's just your name. How can that be classified information?"
"Unlike you, my life has not been written down in interviews, where all the fans know your birthday and your full goddamn name, Blaine Devon Anderson Junior, and –"
"I'm the third, actually."
"Whatever!" he snaps. "I don't care! My life is not for sale, and I don't want to share."
He storms off, quite reminiscent of Mason, who does the same thing roughly five times a day, which only reinforces my belief that Mason is just as gay as Kurt is.
I watch him go disbelievingly. "Hey, come on!" I call after him. "Wait! Come on, Hummel! Just wait!"
He instantly turns back, walking right up to me. "Don't call me that."
"Hummel?"
"Yeah. That."
"Can I call you psycho?"
He grits his teeth, eyes flashing dangerously. I think me not getting worked up over him snapping at me is only pissing him off more.
At least, I don't get worked up until he grumbles, "How do you manage it? Can I ask you that? Going from- from the guy I can't wait to see right back to the guy I can't stand the sight of?"
My hands curl into fists. "No one's forcing you."
"Oh, I'm being forced," he snaps, and when he walks away this time, I let him.
That did not qualify as a fight. Fights involve punches and lots of yelling and throwing things around, not a few snappy remarks early in the morning after pretty fucking amazing sex. And the mere idea of a fight is suggesting the premise of a relationship that goes beyond roadie/musician and casual sex practitioners.
I know his last name. So what? I go on stage every damn night and sing my secrets into a microphone. If someone wanted to, they could probably decipher every one of my lyrics, even the ones I wrote when I was high. And he freaks the fuck out on me because I know one thing about him. Jesus Christ, fucking a gay man is no different from fucking a girl – both are equally irrational.
When Quinn throws a bitch fest at me, I usually wait around for a day or two for her to come to her senses. I'm not upset that she's pissed off because it's what she does. Quinn very rarely does anything that actually means something, which I try to keep in mind whenever I notice Puck looking slightly forlorn and lost in his thoughts. So Quinn wanted to go from fucking one Warbler to two, perhaps dreaming of conquering Seb next, which I definitely would not put past Seb, anyway.
But that's just sex. That doesn't mean anything. And it doesn't mean anything when Kurt and I spend two and a half hours fucking – not multiple sessions, but all round one – but our non-fight? It won't let me rest for a second.
It eats me up as I gather my belongings, throwing them all into my suitcase with my back to the bed where Kurt and I didn't sleep. It's taking stabs at my goddamn brain when I go down for breakfast, still not having slept, finding Ryder and Beiste eagerly stuffing fried eggs into their mouths in the breakfast room that is mostly empty apart from them and a few tourist families. It's downright taunting me when Ryder looks concerned and asks me if I'm feeling alright. I tell him I haven't slept all night. He offers me a pill or two, just something to help me out. I refuse.
And then Nick joins us, bed hair sticking out as he munches on toast, and Ryder instantly shares his concern for my health, and Nick takes one look at me – just one – and he sighs like he knows what's up.
Fuck him. He knows nothing.
When Beiste takes off to get the bus out front, Mason and Kurt walk in, both with duffel bags they threw clothes in for the hotel night. Mason gives us a small wave as they choose a table on the other side of the room. Kurt doesn't look our way. His hair is wet. Couldn't stand the smell of me on him, could he?
I glare at my plate, not feeling hungry at all.
"I've been making some calls to the guys at the office, about the European tour?" Ryder starts. Kurt's at the buffet table, looking at the different cereals. I know he'll go for the croissants before he even reaches the basket. He always eats those. "They've been sketching it out, contacting our London office –"
"Look, can we- Can we not talk about this right now?" I ask impatiently. Kurt's now back at his table with Mason, and Mason is chatting away, Kurt nodding occasionally but clearly detached from it.
"Blaine, come on. You gotta work with me, man. We need to discuss this," Ryder sighs. "Hasn't Kurt talked to you about it?"
"No. Why would he? He's got nothing to do with it," I point out, adding, "Barely talk to the guy, anyway."
"I know, but – Yeah. Maybe later?"
"Later," I shrug, and Ryder nods solemnly, disappointment clear. He mumbles that he'll go see if the bus is out front yet.
Slowly, the rest of the crew comes down for breakfast, taking their time stuffing their faces with as much food as they can before bus call. My crumpled-up napkin lies on top of the food I didn't even touch. Matt is sitting with Mason and Kurt now, but Kurt isn't taking part in the conversation.
Nick mumbles, "Told you nothing good would come of it."
I snap out of staring at Kurt. "Don't talk about things you don't know," I tell him sourly.
"Doesn't take a scientist to figure out you did something. Did you fuck that redhead at the party last night? And now he's pissed, right, because he thought you had plans?"
"What redhead?" I ask distractedly, tensing up as Kurt picks up his bag, motioning towards the door as Mason asks him something.
"The one who spent the entire night trying to get into your pants? You spent, like, twenty minutes talking to her at one point. You don't remember? Honest to god?"
"I have no idea who you're talking about." I might have talked to some girl at some point, but what she looked like, if she was flirting, I have no recollection of.
Just as Kurt is at the door, he looks towards our table. It's just a brief glance, but our eyes meet, and something heavy seems to set in his posture, his shoulders slumping down. And that's not anger. That's sadness.
He's gone in the next second.
"Fuck," I breathe out.
Nick clears his throat. "Told you. I said nothing good could come of that. But hey, if it's over, it's over. It's not like it matters."
"You know, as a guy who can't even keep his six-month-old marriage together, I'd refrain from commenting," I tell him flatly, and he gives me a glare but shuts up. And it's not over, not that there is an 'it' to be over, but it is so not over.
Or maybe it is.
We both brood by our table until Ryder comes to the doorway of the breakfast room to inform us that the bus is out front and that there are some fans waiting to get autographs. "Great," I grumble, though Nick seems to brighten up. He likes meeting the fans. Seb too, only for his ego, but Nick likes people, even if he's been an anti-social fucker all year. He likes people who aren't us.
When we're finally back on the bus, the fans standing outside and waving goodbyes eagerly, Ryder does the head count as Beiste pulls off the curb. "Where's Kurt?" he asks.
I flinch and instantly scan the lounge. I knew it. I mean no, I didn't know it, but I should have known it. Kurt's taken off, is gone, vanished, got freaked out, and it was just his name, the fucker, hitch-hiking on the side of the highway with a sign that says 'anywhere', that cunt, that fucking –
"In his bunk. Poor thing didn't get any sleep last night!" Mason explains sympathetically, lowering his voice and adding, "We should keep quiet. Let him rest."
Oh.
"Bouts of insomnia going around," Ryder notes, eyes lingering on me for a split-second. I stare at him in wonder. What's that supposed to mean? "I'll go check up on him, see if he needs anything."
"Just let him sleep, Ryder," I mutter tiredly. Seb and Matt have settled to playing cards, and Puck is engrossed in a book – the first one he's probably ever picked up. The bus is filled with drowsy, warm air, and no one has the energy to talk much. It's that part of the tour when it's not exciting to be on the road anymore, and it's not close to the finish line either, and we all just want to lie in bed for a day or two.
If Kurt's happily dozed off, not bothering his mind with mundane things like non-fights, then I should do the same. I've got a bed on this bus, unlike the rest of them. I'm the king and they're the court full of bitter noblemen and scheming concubines, but who's the jester and who's really pulling the strings?
"Oh, you guys, I think I figured out how to drink through my nose!" Mason declares.
Okay. So Mason's the jester.
Instead of sticking around to watch Mason splash Coke all over his shirt, which is the only way that can end up, I tell the guys that I'll try and get some rest. It's a long drive to Denver, nine hours at least, and I can catch up on some shuteye.
I walk straight through the bunk area, not letting myself consider pausing there, entering my nest at the back. I tiredly begin to unbutton my shirt when I realize that Kurt is sitting on my bed. He appears to have made himself comfortable, shoes on the floor, feet resting on the covers as he sits with his back against the wall. The dirty back window of the bus is showing the road over his shoulder, white lines on the asphalt disappearing into the distance. He doesn't look at me, and I don't bark for him to get the fuck out.
My hands drop from my collar. "Did you want something?"
I count the seconds flying by before he says, "When I was growing up, my sister got called Hummel by the other kids. She was older and, I don't know. Kids called her that. So you can't call me Hummel, because that's not me."
He shifts uncomfortably, his hands restlessly twisting in his lap. I feel anger pouring out of me and I nod. "Alright." When he remains silent, I say, "I didn't know you have a sister." He doesn't need to know that I know that bit of information as well.
"She died," he says, briefly glancing at me, and I know he's recalling the conversation we had when he got back.
I have nothing to say to that so instead I move to sit on the bed, and since he doesn't shift or object, I sit next to him, pressing my back against the wall as we face the door to my nest. I could let him know that he will not get away with behavior like that, that I'm not the forgive-and-forget type of person. He's come back to me, trying to reconcile, and I could turn it against him easily, and that's exactly what I'd normally do but, on this morning, I am too tired to.
I've never really looked at the back lounge from this perspective before – I usually just sleep here or read a book lying down, sit on the edge and play guitar. There are windows on three walls – the two small ones at the sides and the big one behind our backs. Usually, I pull the curtains over it so that no one can see inside, and I can't see the highway we're driving along. The nest is chaotic since I've mostly dumped my suitcases in it, and considering the bed is the only piece of furniture in it, the floor and bed both are being used as dumping grounds. It's simplistic, claustrophobic and cluttered, and one of the rare places that has felt like a sanctuary to me.
"What was she like?" I ask quietly, staring at his bare toes next to my shoes. I don't look at him – eye contact could scare him off. The silence stretches and stretches, but I wait it out.
"Funny," he says at last. "Smart. Everyone loved her. But she picked on me a lot. I was always just really tiny in size and she was a lot older, so one time mama locked us out of the house and told us to work things out. We just- We never saw eye to eye on much. And then she died."
"Sharing blood doesn't make people compatible, does it?" I ask, knowing the answer too well myself. Kurt makes an agreeing sound. "When was the last time you saw her?"
"Fifteen," he says instantly, not having to think about it. When he dropped off the map. I don't ask him to explain why he didn't see his big sister during the second half of his teenage years at all.
"It's a shame you never got to know what became of the other," I offer, trying to determine what it is he is hung up about. It could be love, but it's hard to love someone who is gone and, from what Kurt told me, it doesn't sound like they had much of a personal connection, anyway.
"I wouldn't have had anything to tell her. I mean, what am I? A roadie for a rock band?"
"Not just some rock band, but The Warblers. We've been number one on Billboard for five weeks now. Five."
"I doubt she would've cared just how ridiculously famous you are. Mason knew I was out of a job, out of an apartment since I got evicted, and he got this job for me and saved my ass. Jobless and homeless. Cecily would have been less than impressed with that," he notes sourly, but quietly adds, "Still. I'll never know, will I?"
"You won't. That'd keep anyone up at night." And the finality of it. Even if you had no plans to get in touch, the possibility was always there. You could pick up the phone, you could meet up. But death puts an end to all of that. And I certainly would not expect Nick to die when he's young.
"Her and mama died a long time ago. I wouldn't have attended the funeral, anyway, but I –it was the anniversary of their death, and I just panicked, took the first bus back home, thinking I had to see the grave, had to stand there with my own two feet. That's why I missed my flight to Nashville. Got to the state line and got out of the bus. Couldn't do it. They're dead and I can't bring myself to..."
"Well, she's not going anywhere. You can visit her grave some other time, you know?"
From the corner of my eye, I see him turning his head to look at me. He is giving me a crooked smile. "That's not necessarily comforting, Anderson."
"Yeah. I'm not very good at that," I admit truthfully. When our eyes meet, he breaks into a grin. "What?"
"Nothing," he says with a quick shake of the head before he leans in and captures my lips before I can react. The kiss is soft and sweet, nothing compared to the dirty and wanton making out from only a few hours before. It's like a wave of cooling water washing over me, calming me down.
"You wanna sleep?" I offer when the kiss breaks. I ask without thinking, and I get a split second to worry about his reaction, but he just nods like he wanted to do just that, anyway.
He lies down, and I busy myself untying the laces of my shoes, kicking them off. I wordlessly move to lie down next to him on top of the covers, and he looks smaller somehow, bearing signs of that kid his big sister used to tease the hell out of. I'm unsure of what to do, but he easily takes my arm and wraps it around his waist as he settles down, his back pressing against me. It's surprisingly easy to relax into, letting my face bury itself in the crook of his neck and breathe him in. He's warm and somehow shaped just right, making me want to pull him to me and just feel him pressed against me.
The bus hums around us, the guys' voices distant like they are useless attempts from another world to penetrate the little bubble we're in. It feels alright now that he's here with me – the non-fight, the anger and anguish fading away.
He whispers, "I didn't mean to, you know. Lash out like that this morning. I just don't like people playing games with me or –"
"I wasn't."
He sighs – I feel his chest expanding as he pulls in air. "Well, you pretended not to know something you knew."
"Mason just mentioned it one time. Probably didn't even mean to, he was mostly talking to himself. You know what he's like," I find myself lying, not sure why I don't just tell him it was Kitty. I don't want him to freak out and pull away. With him, it's like trying to approach a deer without frightening it off: practically impossible.
But for some reason, today he willingly sat here waiting for me to come and pull the trigger. Who knows if I hit the target. I think I might have. In any case, he's lain down in surrender. He wants to lie here in my arms. We're just sleeping. That's all.
"Yeah, I know what he's like," he admits after a while.
I feel the bus slowing down and Puck's voice asking why we're stopping, Beiste calling back that it's a train crossing and we're stuck waiting. As for the world that starts at the door of the back lounge, Kurt's breaths are evening out, and my arm curls around his waist tighter, my hand on his lower stomach.
I distinctively hear Ryder's voice yelling, "Beiste, you are respecting the flashing red lights and waiting! Don't you dare cross and endanger this band!"
I chuckle without meaning to, picturing Beiste impatiently drumming the wheel when no train is in sight, and Ryder's eyes popping out. Kurt shifts slightly, brushing against me as we're glued together. I have a hard time remembering what exactly our casual sex pact included.
"He knows, you know."
"Come again?" I ask tiredly.
"Ryder. He knows what we're doing."
I freeze up, and Kurt turns around to face me. I study his face, trying to catch up. "How do you- What –" I swallow hard. "Tell me."
"He just came up to me and called me out on it. I mean, I said he was insane, but he knew."
"When did this happen? This morning?"
Kurt's eyes seem to focus on my throat. "Dallas." Just as I'm about to snap about that having been a few states back, Kurt says, "Oh, fuck you, you've known my name for who knows how long. I'm telling you now, aren't I? I mean, I figured that Nick must have told him, though he said Nick hadn't."
"No. No, Nick wouldn't tell." Not when I have something to blackmail him with.
"Well, he knows. And he's not gonna tell anyone, said he doesn't care if you're fucking me, but..." He seems to hesitate, and I wait for the punch line. "He wanted to... I mean, like to... recruit me? What I mean is – he basically said my job description now entails keeping you on this tour and I told him how messed up that was but he –"
He sounds nervous and nearly panicked, so I cut him off. "Okay. I get the idea."
"I said yes to get him off my back, you know? I can't force you into anything because you can't make people into something they're not."
It sounds like Ryder, trying to get to me through someone else. But how does he know? That's what terrifies the most, even if I know that Ryder will die with that secret if he has to. Ryder, who I don't trust to care for me personally, would do anything for the band. Nick will deal because he has to, because I've got one on him, whereas Ryder is trying to scheme behind my back, turn it into a weapon.
"It's fucked up how this band works," Kurt adds quietly. "Everyone just lies and goes behind each other's backs."
I can't exactly rush into the lounge and pull Ryder aside, so I relax back into the mattress, still holding Kurt close to me, even if my mind is racing. Kurt knows. I know that I work for him, but he also works for me. And I know what Nick would say, that it's the beginning of the end, that clearly Kurt and I aren't being subtle when we're the only ones missing all the time. Even now, all someone needs to do is look into Kurt's empty bunk to realize that he's back here with me. And as Ryder shows his true nature once more, I'm not sure how much I care about what he thinks of me. Ryder has never really liked me, anyway. It doesn't hit home the way it did with Nick.
"I'm sorry," Kurt whispers.
"What for?"
"I don't know," he laughs. "I just feel like I should apologize."
"Don't," I tell him. I needed to be reminded that I can't trust them. "Just sleep," I tell him quietly, and he nods, pressing closer to me. I always thought that if the situation ever got worse, I'd opt out. But Ryder knows, and instead of pushing Kurt out of my bed, I try to figure out what do with Ryder that will protect the status quo. I like how things are right now.
I know I won't be able to sleep at all today. Kurt's hiding his face in my chest, one of his arms around me and pulling me closer. I breathe in his hair that smells like hotel shampoo, hoping his dreams will be free of ghosts of people he hasn't known for years because blood isn't family. I don't know what is, but it certainly isn't that. And it's not this band.
The bus jerks forward slightly. Kurt curls into me more as the bus drives over the tracks. I keep my eyes on the closed door that conceals us for now, wondering how long we'll manage to keep it that way.