AN: KLFGJKLJKSDFK I'M CUTTING IT SO CLOSE. One more chapter to go. Chapter that I want to get done with tomorrow morning. Before the new episode. And I can't write for a large chunk of the day because I'm going to Salem. Balls.
ALSO I HAVE OVER 100 REVIEWS. WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE? Thank you all. Thank you thank you thank you. You are totally the reason I keep coming back and writing. You're the reason I'm going to keep writing once I'm done with this one. It's been almost a week since I started this and it's been one of the best almost weeks ever.
Random fact: I wrote this chapter wearing a tie I have for no good reason that just happens to be the Dalton tie. Yup. I'm sorta convinced I'm Blaine.
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Blaine was still trying not to push Kurt. He wanted something with him, yes. He wanted it pretty desperately. But he made a promise to himself, and he was going to keep it. Kurt has to make the first move. He told himself. After Karofsky taking his first kiss like that- he may not know it, but he needs to claim his second one as his own. So I'm waiting.
There was no way he could brush off Wes and David when they told him Kurt liked him back now. The subtleties of flirting long-distance were lost with the boy going to the same school. They still texted, but hardly during the day. They still talked on the phone, but not as often. And that wasn't an issue. They only cut down on those forms of communication because they had better, more direct methods now.
Suddenly, a whole world of physical flirting was open to Blaine. Instead of texing the word "Courage" to Kurt in between classes, he could actually verbalize the word, his voice just above a whisper in Kurt's ear as he passed him in the hall. When he wanted to tell him something, any little thing, he'd grab his hand and pull him into an empty classroom, no matter how unimportant the thing he wanted to say was.
And Kurt wasn't shying away from this. In fact, he was starting to be the more forward of the two. It was proving to be a problem. Everything with Kurt seemed to turn into the most amazing problem he'd ever encountered.
"Blaine, are you even listening to me? You're gazing in the distance and I sincerely doubt you're actually paying attention. That's the look you get when you're thinking about a certain soprano. David, he's not paying attention to me. Help?"
"So, Blaine, I was talking to Kurt earlier-"
"Yeah?" Blaine jumped out of his reverie. He'd been considering inviting Kurt over to his house. He'd been to Kurt's house before, picked him up once for coffee when Finn had to borrow his car for something. But besides from that one time, they hadn't made the step from being friends who hung out and texted to being friends who spent time at each other's houses. The idea of Kurt seeing his room seemed much more personal than it had with anyone else he knew.
But the sound of Kurt's name would always send up a red flag in his brain, would always stop his thoughts in their tracks. He was brought back to earth, and remembered that he was sitting in the commons, and supposedly, he was studying with Wes and David. He tried to act like he'd been paying attention the entire time. It didn't even begin to work.
"Nice try." Wes said.
"Yeah, before I started talking about Kurt, we were discussing being florists on the moon." David said. Blaine blushed.
"Sorry, I was just-"
"Thinking about Kurt." They both finished for him.
"Well, yeah," He admitted. "But do you see the way he's looking at me lately? It's like he's daring me to say something about it. Like he's just going to stand there and torture me in his fucking perfectly tailored pants that fit his ass like-"
"Woah woah woah woah woah!" Wes said. "It was all well and good when we'd just met him, and we didn't know him, but the dude goes to Dalton now. He's going to the next Warblers rehearsal. You can't keep talking about his ass, because then whenever he's walking away, all we'll be able to think about is how obsessed with it you are."
"I am not obsessed with his ass," Blaine said, feeling incredibly uncomfortable. "And that isn't the point, anyway. The point is that he's driving me insane, and I think he's doing it on purpose."
"Of course he's doing it on purpose," David told him, patting Blaine on the shoulder. "He wants you to rip off all his clothes and kiss him silly. If you're insane, there's a much higher chance of actually growing the balls to do that."
"Wait, so I'm not allowed to talk about his ass, but you're allowed to put the image of me "ripping his clothes off and kissing him silly" in our heads?"
"Like you didn't have that image in your head already."
"I told you already, I'm not taking the lead on this. If he wants to kiss me, he can kiss me!" He exclaimed, throwing his hands into the air exasperatedly.
"Who can kiss you?" Kurt asked, walking up and sitting down casually on the arm of Blaine's chair. Ever since he'd transferred, he'd acquired the habit of entering conversations just late enough not to know that they were talking about him. Sometimes Blaine wished he'd just show up as he was rhapsodizing about his lips or something- it would be awkward as hell, but then at least it would be over.
"Neil Partick Harris. The man is a genius." He said, thanking god a hundred times over for the improv class he took last year. He was kind of astonished he was actually able to think on his feet like that.
"He's also about fifteen years older than you. And he has a boyfriend. And a baby." Kurt responded. Was that a hint of jealousy in his voice? Huh. Maybe I should mention celebrity crushes more often. He thought.
"Yeah, Blaine. You home-wrecker," Wes said, and snapped his history textbook shut emphatically. "I can hardly stand to look at you, horrible boy. Lets go find someone with morals to study with, David."
"Yup." Was all David said, and he got up, gathered his things, and left without another word.
"They keep doing that." Kurt mused. With David and Wes's departure, they left two seats quite close to Blaine vacant. Kurt didn't move from his perch. He was right, they did keep doing that. Every time the four of them were talking, David and Wes mysteriously had somewhere to go. Blaine wasn't exactly complaining. They'd been clear with him from the start that they would do whatever they could to get Kurt into his eagerly awaiting arms.
"I think they're sleeping together." Blaine suggested. Kurt laughed, his head falling back just slightly, and exposing a bit of neck normally covered by a scarf. It was pale and smooth and beautiful, and Blaine's hands twitched slightly, wanting to pull him down from his slightly higher seat into his lap and kiss that bit of neck until every inch of Kurt was flushed and red. And he meant every inch.
"Blaine? Can I ask you something?" Kurt said, his voice slightly higher than usual, and much quieter than usual.
"Go ahead." Blaine replied, looking him square in the eyes. The trick to looking into Kurt's eyes was to really, really focus on what he was hearing. It was far too easy to keep staring until he was practically drooling and had no idea what was going on around him. He knew this from experience.
"Will you go out to dinner with me? On- will you go out to dinner with me?"
"That was like, a something and a half." Blaine said, joking lamely in an attempt to cover the rabid flailing that was going on beneath his skin. His heart, his brain, his blood- it was all racing. He had absolutely no idea what Kurt's intentions were. It sounded, for a second, like he was going to ask Blaine to go out to dinner with him- on a date. And that was really all he wanted at the moment.
But was that what Kurt wanted? He couldn't tell. All memories of being flirted with, of innuendo tossed around playfully and purposefully, of hands glancing by each other accompanied by sharp gasps that they both tried to ignore, they were all replaced with not so wonderful memories. They were replaced by the awkward ones. It seemed he was faced with a choice between two routes. The safe one, and the risky one.
He picked the safe one.
Later on, he would determine that he had actually picked the stupid one.
"Course! Where do you want to go?" He replied cheerfully, hoping the locale would tip him off and he could figure out if it was a date or not.
"How about Red Onion?" Kurt suggested. No hints there. Red Onion was probably the only Thai restaurant in Ohio outside of Cincinnati, and they'd been there before. It was classy, but not fancy. It had great lighting and great food and lots of families ate there. However, they also had fairly intimate, secluded tables for two. There was no way of telling.
"Nom. Sounds great." He said, smiling wide. Kurt looked happy, but slightly confused. Oh boy. Awkward alert. Blaine thought. Maybe the safe route was just the awkward one. Maybe the only way to stop being awkward is to take a few risks. He mused. Well, only if it works. If not, it's about ten times more awkward. Knowing another gay guy should not be this difficult. He sighed, but only slightly. Kurt didn't notice, which was a small blessing.
"Great! I could pick you up..." Kurt said. A wonderful scene unfolded in Blaine's head involving Kurt showing up on his doorstep with a bouquet of flowers and a charming smile on his face. Of course, picking him up would involve meeting his parents- Oh dear god, no. He tried to suggest something else, but he'd said sure before he'd thought about it, and he wasn't going to take it back, that was just weird.
"I'll give you my address." He said, searching through his bag for a piece of paper.
"Blaine. I have an iPhone," Kurt told him, waving it in front of his face. "Just tell me your address, and I can put it in GoogleMaps and get directions."
"Right." He said. He watched as Kurt went to the maps app, waiting for when he'd be ready to type in his address. Kurt's thumb slid across the screen to unlock it, and Blaine couldn't help but notice that the screensaver was a picture of the two of them Kurt had snapped on his first day at Dalton. They were both smiling, and he remembered vividly the thrill at having an excuse to be closer to the boy, trying to squeeze both of them into frame.
He grinned, and squeaked a little to himself, and rattled off his address like nothing was happening.
"I have to agree with you about Neil Patrick Harris, I must admit," Kurt said, slipping gracefully off of the arm to Blaine's chair and into another available seat. Blaine's side felt a little colder without his body heat so close. "Though he's no Johnny Depp." He concluded.
"Nobody can compare to that man." Blaine said. This was not the first time they'd had this conversation, and he fell quite quickly into the odd mess of emotions that came with it. He embraced the fuzzy feelings of finally having another gay boy there at school with him, and resigned himself to the jealous feelings he felt when Kurt talked about other boys. Even if said boys were far too old, far too unattainable, and far too straight to be a threat.
"Seriously," Kurt agreed. "I mean, the man's hair. There's just something about dark hair, you know? Short, with some texture, like you could just run your fingers through it for hours and never get bored..."
"Eh. I'm more of a fan of light brown hair myself." Blaine said, then looked up at the boy with light brown hair sitting across from him. He blushed. A lot. Damn.
Kurt had the decency not to say anything about it, and went back to talking about actors he wanted to kiss. There was one thing that kept sticking out. Kurt didn't mention the eyes of every guy he talked about, but when he did- They all had hazel eyes. Just like Blaine. He wondered it Kurt had noticed that little detail. And he cowered away from making a move. He was in a perpetual state of cowering away.
It's just up to him. Blaine told himself. That's why I'm not doing anything. Needs to claim his own kisses. Needs to know he's got some control. I'm being the good guy. But it was getting harder to convince himself by the second.
Now, if only someone could text him some courage. He could really fucking use it.