Author's Notes:
Thank you so much for reading. For anyone out there who's up for some good music: playlist?list=PLxfCJHSOib1deVvEwnw-cNcayc_owc4Zy — playlist's link (goes right after the 'dot-com' in youtube's address.) ;)
chapter 4: it's all downhill after the first kiss
What happens that Sunday feels acutely out of place and long overdue all at once, like an excerpt from a whole other life that's too bizarre to be Blaine's but could well have been.
Blaine doesn't say anything to Kurt after serenading him on Friday—doesn't get to; Finn crosses his path right when Blaine's stepping off the stage, pats him on his back, then gently maneuvers him through the crowd, edging him to the back exit. They leave the club before their friends' whistling and cooing gets within Blaine's earshot. Everything Santana shouts as she teases him and Jesse calls as he assures Blaine that everything's been made part of the record dies in the din of other people's voices. Kurt—is the only one quiet, watching Blaine's and Finn's backs disappear into the crowd with heavy, darkened eyes.
Blaine spends the next day pulling his hair out with the memory of it—hazy enough for him not to die from shame, but still there enough to make the blush crawl down his neck.
The worst thing is that the flashbacks of the Friday night keep creeping up on him in every little thing he tries to busy himself with to escape those. They find their way back into his mind no matter what, keep on badgering him, making him stop and flinch and want to curl up on himself in the corner every goddamn time.
By the end of the weekend, he's in a desperate need for a good, long jog; it's as clear to him that he will go mad unless he goes out as the fact that he needs the oxygen to breathe.
Unless he clears his head by the start of the next week, all those fictional excuses for skipping practice sessions he furnished for Kurt the other week might actually come true.
June is in its final breaths, the evening air is warm and misty, tinted with a sunset blush; Blaine tries to even out his breathing as he runs the Scioto Trail. Setting for his fastest pace—the one he falls back on whenever he has some spare energy to burn—he passes families walking, children biking, older ladies and gentlemen brisk walking as his own feet fall in sync with the soulish tune clacking in his earbuds.
my line
your line
don't cross them lines
what you like
what i like
why can't we both be right
"Come on, Kurt, you can still go with us?" Rachel suggests in what she hopes an offhand voice, eyeing Kurt from under her long eyelashes. She licks at her plastic spoon timidly, then puts it back into her Häagen-Dazs carton. The wavy strands of her hair, dyed ever since she moved to NY, bathe in the gentle sunlight that paints a rose-gold hue on them.
She is dazzlingly beautiful.
Kurt licks at his own spoon, savoring the sweet mango freeze on his tongue before he tilts his head back a little. "I might surprise you"—he murmurs around his mouthful—"but we Ohio people don't usually get homesick for other small towns of Ohio scales."
Rachel chortles, almost in relief at the joke; a family with two kids passes them where they stand by the lushly green tree. Rachel smiles at the children cavorting around their parents as the latter stroll down the trail, chatting in pleasant voices.
It's a nice evening to be out here at Scioto Mile, the Sunday crowds offer a strange sense of comfort, the breeze is warm, and the sunset is tickling their faces pleasantly.
"'We Ohio people.' Since when do you refer to yourself as an Ohio person?" Rachel teases him warmly but is suddenly heedful of the innuendo her question conveyed.
Kurt doesn't seem to be, though, as he arches a challenging eyebrow and gives Rachel just as playful an answer as hers was the question.
"Ever since you, Miss Rachel Berry, moved to New York City. Or are you trying to tell me you're as much of a New Yorker as I am of an Ohio man?" he demands with a playful decorum.
Rachel laughs, looking to the side, then back up at Kurt, gazing up at him with an adoring, radiant smile.
"Besides," Kurt says. "Don't come raining on my parade: Ohio has something New York doesn't," he avers smugly, jutting his chin forward.
"...What is it?" Rachel asks him, incredulous, when he doesn't finish the thought but takes another bite of his sorbet instead.
He blinks at her in fabricated innocence as he swallows down the ice cream.
"Hot boys, of course," he responds in a duh voice.
Rachel giggles. Of course Kurt would say that.
"Like Finn, for one," Kurt adds, and now it's his turn to be gazing at her coyly, fiddling with his sorbet. He knows just how tough the long-distance relationship has been on Finn and how often it gets lost on Rachel blinded by the brightness of the Broadway spotlight.
Even now, all Kurt gets from her after mentioning Finn is an averted gaze and a dreamy smile that tugs at the corners of her lips gently coated with a lip gloss.
It doesn't take Rachel long to recover, though, as she looks back up at Kurt, suddenly remembering, and pokes him in the stomach. "And Jesse, isn't it right?" she asks Kurt in a teasing voice, agog to hear all the details. "We've spent the whole day together and I haven't heard you say his name once!"
Kurt smiles, lifting a yet another spoonful up to his mouth to take a bite.
"Have you broken up?" she gasps, but then sees Kurt's smile and finds herself mirroring it. "Will I meet him?" she asks with an impish beam then. "Will he be tonight at our dinner? Will he come tomorrow to karaoke?"
Eyes closed, Kurt shudders with quiet laughter as he licks his spoon before putting it back. "We'll see," is all he says with an enigmatic shrug of his shoulders.
"You better see to him being there, because I am not leaving until I meet him," she warns him half-jokingly as she picks up her own spoon that has sunk into her strawberry-flavored sorbet and points it at Kurt.
It's moments like these that Kurt remembers just how much he loves her—if for no other reason than for her appreciation for sorbets (which honestly wasn't that big of a feat on her part as those were all but the only types of ice cream she, as a vegan, could eat.)
"Oh damn," she mumbles around her mouthful, watching the trail to the left of Kurt and behind his back. "You weren't kidding about hot guys around here, were you?"
Kurt closes his lips around his spoon, raising his eyebrows absent-mindedly before he turns to glance over his shoulder.
The spoon lingers on his bottom lip, tugging it down, as his eyes linger on the person jogging his way towards them.
Blaine is—
Well.
Blaine is wearing a loose black tank top with green running shorts that are a little too baggy for Kurt's liking; his hair is a sweated curly mess, dangling over his temples and his forehead; the white cable of his earbuds sways along his chest as his feet flit over the dry pavement, bouncing his body up with the taut strength of his leg muscles. He's looking in front of him, jaws tightly set in a gorgeous way that highlights his cheekbones as he tries to control his breathing.
Weakly, Kurt plunges the spoon back into his container, eyes overcast with something hard and solemn. With a grave expression, he takes in Blaine's strong calves furry with hairs that were bleached by the summer sun now almost invisible against his olive skin.
Rachel eyes the back of Kurt's head as Kurt ends up turning his whole body away from her, his mien palpably brooding.
"Kurt?" she asks hesitantly. "Kurt!" she hisses when he—suddenly—leaves her with no acknowledgment whatsoever, headed for the stranger approaching them.
"Whatareyoudoing?" she whispers to Kurt's back furiously, watching him stride down the hill in a measured, dangerously determined pace—yet still with a coquettish coyness to it, even now, the blithe way he bounces on his feet when he reaches the pavement, the gentle—albeit assertive—way he crosses the guy's path.
"Jesus, just—" Rachel dithers, throwing her hands up, flustered at Kurt's lack of understanding of what's socially acceptable sometimes. "Okay," she mumbles at last and twirls around, flipping her hair as she turns her back to them and the awkwardness of the situation Kurt's about to put her in.
Eyes boring into her sorbet, Rachel prods it with her spoon, hoping to seem detached enough to fool the guy into thinking she's not with Kurt at all.
there ain't no money left
why can't i catch my breath
gonna work myself to death
When Blaine sees him, it's like a bolt from the blue—it's like he appears out of nowhere, suddenly in his way, suddenly crossing his path, and suddenly Blaine has to rein his pace in unless he wants to slam into him. And Blaine most certainly doesn't, himself a sweated, panting, nasty mess as he halts a few feet away from Kurt all clean and neat and elegant and perfect.
The sun behind Kurt's back is setting, and Blaine pants, staring up at Kurt in front of him who's like a wraith from the Friday night's fiasco, the same haunting beauty and wistful darkness about him as he stares back at Blaine. He stares back at Blaine like he sees through every little thought bustling inside Blaine's head, and is forbearing with it, knowing so much it makes Blaine feel pathetic with his cluelessness.
Blaine tugs at his earbuds, letting them slip out of his ears, partially due to his sweaty skin, and breaths out, "Hey—Kurt. What are you...?" he leaves the question open-ended as his chest heaves and his hands reel the cable in around his iPod before he slips it into the pocket of his shorts, eyes searching Kurt's face.
Having heard the stranger say Kurt's name, Rachel turns her head to sneak a curious look their way.
Kurt's expression is forebodingly serious, his eyes a breathtakingly livid shade of gray as they pierce into Blaine's; Kurt's hand stirs the ice cream inside his carton with a plastic white spoon. Blaine's heart tumbles inside his chest at the conjecture that Kurt's about to comment on Blaine serenading him the other day—they never talked about it—they never talked since—yet before Blaine gets to open his mouth to explain himself, Kurt interjects.
"Hold my sorbet."
Blaine gawks down at the carton of the yellow-colored ice cream that Kurt holds out for him to take, and without stopping to question it, Blaine wraps his warm hands around the cold container. He sniffs in a breath as he starts to look up, about to ask Kurt what it's all about until—
Kurt doesn't give him a warning. The same sullenly determined look on his face, Kurt steps closer, eyes fixed on Blaine's mouth, grim and quiet and sure as his hands—reach up to cup the line of Blaine's jaw—barely there, barely touching his damp skin, and Blaine barely gets to see him up close when he looks up as Kurt—closes the few remaining inches of space between their faces—
His lips press to Blaine's, so soft and smooth and cold and wet from the ice cream against Blaine's hot ones—
i don't wanna fight no more
i
don't wanna fight no more
i
Blaine gasps for breath like a drowning man, his pulse suddenly racing through the roof as he opens his eyes wide to stare at Kurt's face pressed against his own, forehead to forehead, noses smashed together, lips parted as they breathe in, breathe out shakily.
Kurt's eyes are closed, calm and peaceful and tranquil; his eyelids flutter. Scattered around the bridge of his nose, Blaine notices a sea of tiny little freckles—so pale Blaine never knew they existed before. Kurt tilts his head to the side a little, lips ghosting over Blaine's gaping mouth teasingly—but it seems like Kurt himself is the only one he's teasing here as he nudges his nose against Blaine's, breathing Blaine in, cradling his jaw.
He doesn't seem to be in the least affected by Blaine's whole world as it comes crashing down around him, everything he's built around what he thought was set in stone, what he thought he knew about himself, the life he thought was his—Kurt just tightens his grip on Blaine's clammy skin as his fingers slip further around the back of Blaine's neck and bury themselves in Blaine's sweaty mop of curls.
Blaine's hair must be all greasy and damp and gross, yet Kurt grabs two avid handfuls and just—tugs Blaine's face closer to his, guiding it to press their lips together, again.
The tiniest, softest touch of Kurt's lips ignites Blaine's whole body, sending a sweet, shuddery itch down his skin; Blaine lets out a quiet mewl, eyelids dipping as his lips timidly—instinctively—find their way around Kurt's bottom lip to press a gingerly kiss back.
Incited by the response, Kurt presses his face into Blaine's, collecting Blaine's head in his hands; Kurt's mouth falls open feverishly—angrily, almost, as he squeezes his eyes shut. His hands slide back along the sides of Blaine's jaw, fingertips biting into the slick, sweaty skin on Blaine's throat as Kurt catches all of Blaine's hot, ragged breaths with his slack mouth.
Blaine's pretty sure he starts to hyperventilate, heart pounding in his chest, mouth blindly searching for Kurt's mouth as his fingers threaten to squeeze the ice cream out of the carton Kurt left for him to hold.
Kurt prods Blaine's upper lip with his teeth, jutting his head up with the motion; one of his hands slides down Blaine's collarbone while the other one cups the back of Blaine's head.
Blaine lets out a tiny whine as his mouth falls open, and Kurt almost tells him 'shh' with the way he slides his left hand back up Blaine's chest to press his nails into the underside of Blaine's chin, tilting Blaine's head back for him. Kurt—opens up his own jaw wide and slides his tongue into the dry warmness of Blaine's mouth.
Blaine's breath hitches as he feels Kurt's smooth, delicate, so good tongue glide against his, letting Blaine taste a vestige of mango sorbet on it—the same sorbet that's dripping down Blaine's hands now, oozing over the brim of the carton Blaine's crunched without even noticing.
Kurt slides his tongue back out; Kurt waits a couple of torturous seconds—both their eyes squeezed shut, their jaws hanging, Kurt's fingernails piercing into Blaine's jawline, tightening their grip—before Kurt's tongue surges back inside and his hands haul Blaine's head up even closer.
Blaine whimpers quietly, gulping down against Kurt's tongue as it laps up the inside of his mouth, coaxing ragged little breaths out of Blaine each time it slides out as a short respite for Kurt to angle his head against Blaine's a little better.
Blaine's whole body swims with a vertiginous thrill that sweeps him up high until it ebbs away gently only to come crashing at him even harder—fueled by the movement of Kurt's tongue against his, languid and unhurried and sure as it massages Blaine's palate, Blaine's gums, Blaine's teeth.
Floating, Blaine starts to work his tongue against Kurt's, tilting his head to accommodate the changes in angle, trying to find their own special rhythm—Kurt's index fingers slide behind Blaine's sweaty ears as Kurt cups Blaine's head protectively with both of his hands.
Rachel just stands there, jaw-hanging, watching Kurt and this hot mess of a jog guy devour each other's faces right there in the middle of the Scioto Mile, right in the way of families and children and joggers passing by who have to circle them awkwardly, hindered by their presence.
They kiss, moving their heads left to right, mouths sliding against each other in smooth, graceful motions, all teasing pecks and kittenish licks, Kurt's hands cupping Blaine's jaw, Blaine's hands wringing the poor sorbet carton.
At some point Kurt pulls his face back a little—only to have Blaine's face in his hands follow as Blaine inches up on his tiptoes, defying to break the kiss, his eyes still closed and mouth deliciously reddened.
Kurt glances up at Blaine's face, the murky blue of his eyes now a bit clearer, lips still a bit parted before he—leans back in to press one more tender, closed-mouthed kiss to Blaine's plump lips, stroking the sides of Blaine's neck as his thumbs trace the outline of his Adam's apple.
Faces pressed together, both of them try to ground themselves as Kurt's hands slip down Blaine's shoulders, down Blaine's biceps—sweaty and firm and sweetly defined—down Blaine's forearms fuzzy with rough hairs, over his hands smeared in the sugary yellow ice cream as Kurt finally gets hold of the crunched container.
Kurt sucks in a breath when he takes the carton back, his nose pressed to Blaine's cheekbone as he daubs his own fingers in the slimy mango mess to straighten the carton back into its original shape.
Empty-handed, Blaine opens his eyes to stare down between their bodies at Kurt's hands working the carton. Blaine runs his tongue over his lips, then swallows.
When the sorbet carton is somewhat restored, Kurt pulls his head back and looks down at Blaine. He makes sure Blaine's eyes follow the movement of Kurt's hands when Kurt raises them, first the left, then the right, up to his mouth and cleans his fingers of the ice cream with his tongue.
Blaine watches Kurt run his tongue kittenishly up each and every digit in a coy, demure manner—as if he didn't know Blaine was watching at all, let alone the fact that Kurt's own eyes are boring into him with a challenging murkiness in them.
When Kurt's finished and lowers his hand, Blaine finally looks up from Kurt's lips into his eyes. He holds the eye contact as intensely as Kurt if not more so, dark brown eyes piercing into the dark blue ones, serious, humorless, and heedful of what just happened between them.
Kurt stirs the melted sorbet with a spoon.
"Oh. My. Fucking. God!" Rachel squeals, suddenly by their side, hand covering her mouth as she gazes at them in a complete and utter awe.
Blaine doesn't seem to be present as he keeps watching Kurt, unconcerned by their surroundings, his lips pressed together like he doesn't want to lose the taste of Kurt's mouth on them. Kurt swallows before he looks down at his sorbet somewhat coyly—as if somehow abashed by Rachel's presence, a little out of his element.
And before Blaine is brought back down to earth, he catches a bashful smile tugging at the corners of Kurt's lips that Kurt tries to hide behind a spoonful of the thawed ice cream.
"Is that him?" Rachel rushes to ask Kurt, almost gossip-like as she pounces him. "Are you Jesse?" she turns to Blaine without waiting for Kurt to answer.
Jesse's name is what jolts Blaine out of his stupor, forcing him to finally recognize a stranger's presence by their side. He turns his attention to her slowly, eyeing her a couple of absent times before fixing his gaze on her for good.
He recognizes her without having to go through the introductions; a twinkle of something so free in her eyes, an air of something so vibrant about her. She looks like a crisp, breezy New York night in all of its glory, no better way to put it.
Despite the ridiculous circumstances under which Blaine sees her for the first time, he catches himself mirroring her radiant, sparkling smile. How can one not?
"I'm—no, um." He turns to glance at Kurt who turns to glance at Rachel.
"Oh what?" Kurt asks her, nonchalant. "Oh, no. Rachel, please meet Blaine, a friend of Jesse's. So as mine," Kurt shrugs a shoulder coquettishly before he takes another bite.
Rachel gawks up at Kurt in bewilderment, a delicate hand covering her mouth.
No matter how much Blaine tries to stay focused, he finds his gaze drawn back to Kurt. The casual way Kurt stirs his sorbet, the relaxed way he licks his lips before pressing them together, and Blaine's just left standing there, watching Kurt silently.
The awkward silence deteriorates when Rachel turns to stare at the hot mess of a Kurt's boyfriend's friend to her left. The guy keeps watching Kurt sidelong with dark eyes, seemingly with no care for the world around them after what Kurt has just put him through.
"You know what?" Rachel blurts after a couple of silent moments, glancing between them. "Let's just go with it," she hisses mischievously with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Hi! My name is Rachel Berry," she tells Blaine as she holds her hand out, excitement rolling off of her in waves. "It's so nice to meet you!" she chirps. "Kurt has told me abso-lutely nothing about you!" she turns to arch an impish eyebrow at Kurt mid-sentence that lets him know she'll be demanding an explanation later.
Blaine looks awkwardly between the hand Rachel offered him and his own fingers smeared in Kurt's sorbet. When she turns her attention back to Blaine after sharing a telepathic conversation with Kurt by means of her suggestive glances, Blaine offers her an apologetic smile.
"Oh!" she says suddenly. "Hold that for me," she shoves her own carton with rose-colored ice cream into Kurt's hands, fumbling with her purse. "Here," she says, flipping her wavy strands back when she holds out an opened pack of wet wipes to Blaine. "For those of us who like to clean our hands old-fashioned way," she adds as she flashes a teasing smile Kurt's way.
Blaine thanks her and pulls one piece of cloth out, stealing a glance at Kurt when he starts to wipe his hands.
Kurt's cheeks flush up sweetly at Rachel's comment; he ducks his head, fidgeting with his sorbet, smiling.
Blaine can't help a foolish smile that lights up his own face at the sight of Kurt blushing. He can't take his eyes off of him as he cleans his hands, a sight so exotic Blaine never could've imagined it in his head until he saw it and yet so natural Blaine wants to see it more often.
He also wants to squeeze Kurt in a hug so tight the other boy won't be able to breathe, but he tries to keep it together.
Blaine thanks Rachel again, crumpling up the dirty cloth in his hands before he shoves it into the pocket of his shorts. Then, he properly stretches out his hand.
"Blaine Anderson," he introduces himself, flashing her a charming smile. Impressed, Rachel takes his hand. "Well I heard a lot about you—from Finn, mostly"—Blaine clarifies, causing Rachel to point a comic, sideways glance at Kurt—"so it's nice to finally put a name to a face."
Rachel's mouth makes a silent 'aw' before she breaks into a flattered smile, shaking Blaine's hand enthusiastically.
"I may not have heard your name before, but it makes the two of us now," she reassures him with a pleasant smile as she takes back her sorbet from Kurt. "And since you and Finn seem to know each other, dare I hope that I will see you tonight at our dinner?" She invites Blaine indirectly, arching her eyebrows. "My life in New York tends to get a bit lonely at times, so I'm dying to get the most of your little-soul-rock family while I'm here," she explains with a modest smile.
Blaine chuckles, chancing an unsure glance at Kurt by her side who quietly tends to his sorbet.
Rachel turns to look up at Kurt and nudges him in the stomach mid-bite.
"Ouch," he protests around his mouthful, but quickly concedes what she wants of him. "Do come, Blaine," he says in a low voice after he swallows, eyes downcast, hands still fidgeting with his carton. Blaine's eyebrow arches of its own accord: Kurt's never avoided his gaze before.
Rachel watches an adoring grin ghost over Blaine's mouth as he tries and fails to establish an eye contact with Kurt. She turns to gaze up at Kurt; the two are too adorable to be true.
"Alright then," she coos, watching them. "Let's not intrude into Blaine's jogging routine any more than we already have," she suggests to Kurt once again with that teasing quality to her voice as she slides her hand through his arm. "Look forward to seeing you tonight, Blaine!" she singsongs as she tugs Kurt away and past Blaine.
Blaine's head swivels as his eyes follow Kurt. When Rachel circles Blaine on their way off, Kurt and he nearly bump heads.
"Bye," Kurt murmurs, smiling down at Blaine softly as he swishes by, inches between their faces.
"Bye," Blaine rumbles, turning around to watch Kurt get dragged away, a smoldering heaviness in his hazel eyes as they bore into Kurt's head of chestnut hair.
Kurt can't seem to resist looking back at Blaine quietly as he and Rachel wander off, catching Blaine's dark gaze with an ever-present coquettish twinkle in his clear, blue eyes.
And, just like that, Blaine is left standing alone in the middle of the Scioto Trail, his world thrashed upside down and put back in place in less than the past ten minutes.
The atmosphere inside Hummel-Hudsons' that night reminds Blaine of the first night he stayed after the first practice he shared with Finn, the first time he let his gaze wander over Kurt's pale features, the first time Finn caught him staring and filed it in his mind as Blaine ogling Santana.
The memory of it brings a smile to Blaine's face despite his overall mood, and he grins foolishly, lifting his Corona up to his lips for a swig.
"Why do you seem to be so happy?" Santana muses grouchily next to him on the couch, eyeing him with half-hearted suspicion. Her legs are crossed, her fancy boots brashly placed on the coffee table as she smokes her cigar, as usual, watching others slow-dance to one of Lou Reed's relaxed, laid-back songs wafting from the speakers.
Blaine watches Finn and Rachel smile at each other radiantly, chatting while they move slowly in each other's arms. Santana watches Britt lay her forehead on Sam's shoulder as they sway gently.
"Just remembered something," Blaine responds as he leans back into the couch, getting comfortable. "You sure you don't want to join?" he asks, turning his head on the cushion to look at her.
She takes a drag, dropping her head back for greater effect when she lets a creamy puff of smoke out. "No thanks, I've got a cigar to smoke. And you"—she points her cigar at the Corona bottle in Blaine's hand seated between his legs—"'ve got a beer to drink."
Blaine stares at her for a couple of moments longer before he shakes his head softly and rolls his eyes a bit, turning back to watch everyone else dance.
and maybe you and I could fall in love
regain the spirit that we once had
Kurt has his arms stretched out and draped loosely over Jesse's shoulders as they sway in a slow, light-hearted manner, Jesse's hands stroking Kurt's back as they chat about something.
you'd let me hold you and touch the night
that shines so bright
so bright with fright
doin'
a modern
dance
Against his better judgement, Blaine lets his gaze linger a tad too long on the keen way Jesse asks Kurt something, stroking his back, and the way Kurt's gaze gets distant for a moment before he comes up with a deadpan humorous answer that draws a breathless chuckle out of Jesse's throat.
"For the record," Santana persists, gesturing with her cigar. "I say we breathe some wine into this beer-reeking house. It's like Corona was the only option on shelves in that miserable Lima town of theirs that they don't know anything else now."
Blaine turns to look at her funnily, swishing the sip of beer he just took around inside his mouth. He swallows. "I like Corona."
She blows the smoke out. "Yeah, well maybe it was one of the reasons we didn't work out," she says, turning to look at him pointedly, a dark hue of seriousness in her chocolate-colored eyes that doesn't last very long when Blaine snorts, suddenly splitting his sides. She watches him giggle, then tries to hide her own smile in the next drag she takes.
They draw one or two curious looks from the middle of the living room where the pairs are dancing.
"How miserable are we, really?" Blaine asks her, clutching his stomach when he's done rolling in laughter, a little buzzed with alcohol and the smoke from Santana's cigar and—simply put, joy. "I mean what are the chances of two confused people stumbling upon one another, giving it a go, and being each other's eye-opening experience that they both might just belong to the other team," Blaine muses, looking at Santana with a goofy smile as he sways his knees a little to the melody.
She smiles softly, leaning forward as she reaches for the ashtray.
"Not so miserable as to quit the game altogether, are we?" She smiles at him over her shoulder as she stubs her cigar out.
Blaine watches her flip her heavy, black hair back as she gets up and faces him. Intrigued, he watches her lean down to press a warm, platonic peck on his lips before she hands her cigar over to him.
"Hold my cigar," she calls out, pointing a finger at him when she starts to walk backward into the room.
Blaine finds himself bubbling with laughter, giving her the thumbs-up. He once held something for someone today, and damn if it didn't feel absolutely magical.
He wishes her to experience the same feeling, with all his heart.
He hides his excited grin in the next swig of his beer he takes, watching Santana slide up to Britt from behind, catching her slim frame in a hug. Girls laugh; Sam takes an awkward step back, smiling at their intruder hesitantly. Santana and Britt start to rock from side to side to the music as Britt lays her hands on top of Santana's forearms on her stomach.
Blaine watches Britt ask Sam to go fetch something for them in the kitchen to which he puts on a reassuring smile and nods before he turns to leave.
i need a guru, i need some law
explain to me the things we saw
Blaine smiles, watching Britt turn around in Santana's embrace and let her take Sam's place in what they were doing before Santana interrupted them—slow-dancing. Britt smiles down at her, picking up a soft conversation as she plays with her hair on her back.
it's all downhill
after the first kiss
Blaine's eyes fall on Kurt dancing with Jesse few feet away; Kurt catches him looking mid-sentence as he and Jesse chatter about something; Kurt pauses when he and Blaine catch eyes.
Quickly, Kurt regains his composure, regaling Blaine with a simple, brief smile as he picks up where he left off, looking back to Jesse. Like it doesn't mean anything. Like it all means nothing.
Blaine would've felt something distinct at the brush-off gesture if he wasn't too busy feeling happy for his friend and simply—enjoying the moment however it comes.
He suddenly realizes now that his job here is done, he has no business sitting on that couch in the back anymore. He doesn't want to.
He stands up, takes the last swig of his beer (how quickly his bottle was gone) and leaves Santana's cigar and his empty bottle on the coffee table. He nods and smiles at everyone as he squeezes past them on his way to the porch.
Rachel pinches Finn's bicep, eyeing Blaine with a tight, concerned look on her face. Finn turns around to search for Blaine's curly head.
"Yo, dude!" he calls him. "Are you leaving?"
Blaine raises his eyebrows. "Nah, I'll just get some air, don't worry 'bout it," he waves it off.
As he makes his exit, he doesn't get to see Rachel shoot daggers at Kurt in Jesse's arms. Blaine doesn't get to see Kurt tighten his jaws at her glare and then give her the same stubborn brush-off he gave Blaine a minute ago.
He calls his mom, again, just like the last time he was sitting here before Kurt came to find him. Something in the scenery at night around here must conjure up memories of his childhood, the murky shapes of the trees, the hollow-blue patches of sky where there's nothing, the narrow suburban street that mostly stays empty except for an occasional car or two passing by, flickering their headlights over the dark shadows.
Something in this must appeal to some of the oldest, faraway memories treasured and held dear in the back of his mind, some of those tucked too deep into the subconscious stratum to be considered retractable.
It's the first time he feels uneasy talking about himself with his mom, the first time he has a distinct feeling that he's deceiving her on some level, even if their conversation doesn't ever come close to the subject of his love life, let alone his sexual identity.
He never thought him being not what his mother thinks he is would be a problem, he never expected it to be any different from all those times she asked him if he'd been smoking and he told her that his clothes always smelled simply because some of his friends were.
If he is being completely honest with himself, he didn't think about his mother at all when he did, in fact, reflect on his sexual orientation and what it means for him now moving forward.
"Blaine," his mother's soft voice calls his attention on the other end of the line. "Are you sure you're okay?" she asks him, careful yet worried.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure," he promises her, racking his brains as to what might have managed to give him out.
"You sound too sure," she notes dryly, only half-joking, but the lilt of her voice suggests that she will let it slide. "Alright then. Just don't forget that I'm always here for you, alright? If you need to talk or something's bothering you and you have no one else to turn to. You know that, right?"
Blaine stares at the grass, his grip on his cell phone tightening. He'd love to hear what she says after all is said and done.
"Of course I know that, mom," he says and it takes him a great effort to keep his voice even and above the whisper.
"Alright. alright," she teases, seemingly convinced that it was just her. "Drive safe, and don't stay up late," she advises him almost jokingly, knowing this would earn her a roll of eyes on Blaine's part—which it does.
"Yeah, you too," he says what he always says to that, turning to look back when the front door cracks open, throwing a beam of light on the stoop and boosting the music louder.
"Deal," his mom says into his ear joyfully. "Love you."
"Love you," Blaine says, looking up at Rachel in the doorstep. "Bye."
Blaine hangs up; Rachel glances over her shoulder carefully, sneaking a glimpse of others down the hallway, making sure she goes unnoticed before she moves to step outside and closes the door behind her silently.
In silence, Blaine watches her smile at him awkwardly and tuck the wavy strands of her hair behind her ears as she walks up to Blaine in a hesitant step.
"May I join?" she asks him, hopeful yet unsure.
Blaine nods; there's an air of something dreadful about her, like she's a parent who's about to have 'the talk' with her child, and Blaine suddenly finds it very difficult to look forward to hearing what she has to say.
She makes sure to brush the dust off the wood before she lowers herself down next to Blaine, careful to straighten her black high-waist flared skirt.
They sit in silence for half a minute or so, looking at the sky and what not, before she makes an awkward gesture to Blaine's iPhone, tucking another strand behind her ear. "That—a boyfriend or…?" she asks, jutting her chin at Blaine's phone.
Blaine frowns, completely blanking as to what that's supposed to mean.
"You said you loved—them," she tries to explain. "I don't mean to intrude, I just. I'm just trying to get the whole picture, after what I saw earlier today," she adds ungainly, trying to lighten up the mood with a humorous reference.
Blaine blinks at her slowly, then turns to look down at the phone in his hands.
"No, that was my mom," he tells her like it is, still watching his iPhone, the frown on his brow suggestive that he's about to demand something in return.
Yet when he opens his mouth and turns to face her by his side, she lifts up a hand.
"I know," she interjects with a knowing look. "I'm awful at this. I'm used to being upfront with people, asking them what I need to ask and telling them what they need to know, no sugar coating it. Or, at least with people I care about," she adds with a 'whatever' grimace.
This makes Blaine's irritation with her ebb away a little; he raises an eyebrow at her instead. She watches him, eyes searching his face like she's about to laugh at herself, hand raised in a gesture asking if they're okay.
"Okay?" she asks, wiggling her eyebrows at him before she chortles a quiet laugh. Blaine finds himself smiling too. "Uh, I know I'm terrible," she says when she comes down from it, turning to gaze at him.
"Okay," Blaine says with a laugh of his own; at least she's honest about it. "What do you need to ask?"
She shifts where she's sitting to face Blaine a little better. Her dark eyes are filled with an odd mixture of fright and…hope. She lets the silence stretch a little too long for it not to be for the pure sake of dramatic effect.
"Do you care about him, a lot?" she asks in a soft voice, gazing into his eyes.
Blaine's face changes at the question, a shade of something grim or maybe serious falls over it, but he doesn't look away—just isn't quick to answer either.
"I care about him too much," is what he says and what he fails to say the way he intended to; his voice cracks into a whisper at the end and it has him glancing up at the sky, so very much tired of feeling this way. He swallows, closing his eyes with his head still thrown back.
"No, no no no no," Rachel mumbles quietly, shaking her head as she moves a little closer to him, hovering her hand over the soft fabric of his sweatshirt on his forearm, not quite daring to touch him yet. Searching Blaine's face, her eyes are filled with desperate longing to turn his train of thought around. "There is no such thing as caring about Kurt too much. Blaine," she calls quietly, squeezing his arm. "Please look at me."
He lowers his head down, opening his eyes with an apprehensive look in them. He couldn't escape the distaste that raced through him at the sound of her voice like that, talking to him like she…was here all along, here with Kurt, and cared about him and his feelings with everything she had.
He tries to reel it in a little; if this was everything she had, who was she to blame?
"Kurt is such an exceptional person," she goes on to tell him, pressing a hand to her chest and closing her eyes to show how much she means it. "If you care about him as much as you say you do already, you just wait and see him with his guards completely down," she promises, shaking her head at the veracity of it.
He can't help his eyebrows from furrowing further as she keeps going.
"I know how hard it must be," she says and Blaine winces at the actual sincerity in her voice; how can a person be so inherently mistaken in time and place and the content of what she's implying yet be so genuine while doing so? It's above him.
"No, scratch that, I can't imagine what it's like meeting Kurt for the first time by the moment Kurt was gone, but I—" she takes a moment to search for the right words, still squeezing Blaine's forearm.
Blaine feels his heart thump with an awful presage of conflict, he hates when people make him feel this way. Like they're wrong, they're wrong, they're so absolutely wrong about him, and yet he feels the need to listen to them, be patient and let them talk and be wrong until it's considered polite to interrupt and let them know just how awfully wrong they are.
He shudders in a bracing breath; she finds her words.
"If you managed to see through him like I have a feeling you did, I know you know it without me having to tell you that Kurt's still Kurt. And I'm"—she takes a second to look up at the sky, shuddering with emotion—"just so happy you two met," she looks down at him with a loving smile and genuine spark in her eyes. "I'm only worried you will mistreat his true self the way his counterfeit self deserves to be treated," she says in the end, her voice laced with genuine worry.
Blaine bites his tongue to the very last moment, but he fails to stop his voice from sounding harsh when he asks her if she's finished.
She blinks at him, suddenly clueless as to what could've caused his reaction, and it makes something mean and egocentric inside Blaine's chest swell at the fact that he managed to replace the mighty-all-knowing look on her face with complete perplexity.
He slowly tugs his hand away, shifting in his seat to face her a little better too.
"Rachel," he starts, ducking his head as he tries to ward off this irrational, childish grudge her words have stirred in him. "I know what you're saying comes from the heart," he looks up at her. "Thank you for that. Kurt is—lucky to have you in his life, he is," he nods and he means it.
Her eyes search his face with no clue where he's going with this.
"But the vibe I got from the little conversation we've had so far makes me question whether you truly have the whole picture of what's been going on," Blaine says, trying to present her with it in a gentle and civil manner. "Because you come across like you think you do," he adds in a careful voice, watching her as he speaks.
She cringes in an uncertain, thrown-off-balance way. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asks, pulling back a bit, clearly taking offense.
"I care about Kurt very much," Blaine repeats with an emphasis, heedless of what she asked him as he goes on. "If I look like some random awkward curly-headed wannabe-rockstar straight playboy to you who's just going through a phase, I don't blame you," he says in a deadly serious, firm tone of voice, eyes fixed on her. "I may have failed to get my point across well the first time, so here it comes again: I'm not going anywhere," he enunciates it clear and unequivocal for her and he can't escape that little emphasis he puts on the I in there. "But you also seem to have the wrong impression of what my relationship with Kurt actually is and are all too quick to underestimate it as a result of this."
Rachel lets on a conciliatory, if slightly condescending, smile. "But Blaine, I have no way of knowing what your relationship is like: he hasn't told me anything about you," she chatters in a gentle voice with a hand pressed to her collarbone like this should explain everything.
Blaine chuckles, turns to look at the dark, empty road girding the front yard.
"Well that's just it, Rachel," he says when he turns back to her. "With all due respect," he says, lifting up his hand. "Has it maybe occurred to you that I'm not the reason why Kurt never mentioned me to you?"
Rachel draws back, for the first time getting what Blaine is getting at.
"I'm not postulating it for me," Blaine says when he sees her deflate. "Like I told you, no matter how much more I care about him than it's requited, I'm not leaving, so this isn't me passing the buck. And trust me, I take no pleasure in picking up a conflict," he adds, glancing at her sideways. "You seem like an exceptionally nice person who truly cares about her friend. I'm asking you this because I have a feeling no one else is going to."
Rachel raises her eyebrows briefly with a judgmental tilt of her head as she looks down at her skirt.
"I may not have known Kurt for as long as you have," Blaine concedes in a sad near-whisper, watching her watch her hands. "But I know him now, and that's what matters."
Silently, she looks up at him from the corner of her eye, fidgeting with her hands as she lets him talk.
"I take it you also 'know it without me having to tell you' that Kurt doesn't belong here," Blaine says, air-quoting her own words with a bit of a smile. She rolls her eyes a little, breaking into a coy smile of her own. "So I guess what I'm still trying to understand is how…"
you let him stay
"…he stayed."
He doesn't get to regret omitting his true thoughts when a painful expression crosses her face and she turns to look to the side, gazing at the road the way Blaine did before. When he takes in the heartbroken, wistful look in her eyes, he knows she knows it too, without him belaboring what already hurts.
"Yeah," she says after a silent while, glancing up at the night sky. "I guess you could find the answer in that one to your first one," she admits in a soft, bitter murmur.
"I guess so," Blaine echoes quietly, watching her.
After another minute of silence passes, Blaine gets up quietly and gives Rachel's shoulder a gentle squeeze, about to head back inside.
Rachel squeezes her eyes shut when she hears him leave and blurts out just before his footsteps reach the front door, "Come to Lima with us."
She turns around, looking up at him with an apologetic, hopeful smile and pleading eyes.
He stares at her dumbly with his hand frozen on the door handle, face gone perfectly blank.
"This is what I truly came here to ask you," she says, her lips still stretched in a rueful smile. "I told you I suck at it," she blabbers as she hurries to get up. "I should've asked you right away because I came here scared out of my wits with no clue how to approach Kurt to talk about anything that matters after a year of empty conversations about how was your day—great, and then I went to the bathroom, and then I went to do groceries; have I told you about that lady on the bus? She looked at me funny! But hey, you should come visit me one day!" Rachel spits out, mimicking her and Kurt's empty talk over the phone and via Skype this past year without pausing to draw a single breath. "And then you run out of the sunset and the next thing I know—he's all over you, kissing you like he will die if he doesn't, holding you like you're the single most precious thing that ever happened to him," she prattles on and on incessantly as Blaine's eyes go wide like saucers; he feels himself shiver at her words. "And then afterwards, after you ran off into the sunset the way you came"—she makes a funny gesture with her hand—"it just flowed, we just clicked and we actually had an actual conversation, Blaine, no jokes and no diversions, even if it was something as simple as the narrative of how your little crew got formed," she breathes out in a small, raspy voice, desperate to make Blaine see.
Speechless, Blaine blinks at Rachel, her words reverberating inside his head, making it hard for him to think.
Rachel purses her lips in frustration, looking at Blaine with desperate eyes. "I'm begging you," she whispers quietly, folding her hands in a praying gesture as she lets the tips of her middle fingers touch her lips.
Blaine swallows bitterly before he mutters back, "Rachel, I'd be honored to come. But I won't be setting my foot anywhere near Kurt's hometown unless he tells me he wants me there. And I trust him to tell me if he does."
Rachel processes the response she got, then lets her eyes roll back a little before she closes them. She wraps her arms around herself. "Okay," she says quietly with a nod.
Blaine nods too with a small smile before he twists the knob to open the front door.
The karaoke night a couple of days later turns into a spectacular disaster.
Kurt and Jesse, Finn and Rachel, and Blaine are the first to show up at this place Finn picked up, not chiefly a karaoke bar but a bar that hosts Live Band Karaoke on Wednesdays, supposedly with the best collection of songs to choose from as well as the best type of crowd in Columbus; Brittany and Santana are running late.
Sam's already left for Lima the day before; and it's only a matter of three days until Rachel, Finn, and supposedly Kurt (who hasn't given his final answer yet) leave as well.
Rachel and Finn chatter about something as the five of them are being ushered to the booth they reserved in advance. Blaine trudges behind Kurt and Jesse, taking notice of Jesse's hand placed confidently on Kurt's waist as they move through the dim-lit room, circling the busy tables.
Blaine thinks about how Rachel's chirrup makes a nice enrichment to their group's dynamic. Her exuberant personality will definitely be missed by him once she's gone.
Once everyone is gone, Blaine corrects himself in his mind: even Jesse's going back to his hometown for the 4th of July—one of those stringent family traditions he would never get away with forsaking.
Blaine thinks about how it's either Kurt chooses to go to Lima, or he lets Jesse take him to Akron. Which would have the bonus of finally meeting his boyfriend's parents.
Blaine thinks about how either way, it's only going to be him and Santana here in Columbus. Blaine thinks about what kind of arrangements they could make to salvage their forthcoming lonely night, or maybe he could convince her to come barbecuing with his extended family who will be keeping his mother company that day.
The five of them snug themselves into their booth, Finn and Rachel squeezed in the middle, Blaine on the side, some space left for Britt and Santana on Jesse's end of the curved seat. They ask for some water while they wait for the girls and hatch up a mischievous little ploy to make the fashionably-late ones pay for the first round.
They titter and smile devilishly and keep chatting as they get comfortable when it happens.
"Would you look at that," a familiar voice with this repugnant, smarmy lilt to it drawls to Blaine's left. "Blaine. Fancy meeting you here," Sebastian says with that self-satisfied grin of his when he emerges out of nowhere by their booth, a fancy drink in his hand.
Blaine's pupils blow wide; he slowly turns his head to the side to stare up at Sebastian with his face gone absolutely white.
"Please, don't tell me you can sing," Sebastian pouts flirtatiously, skimming his eyes over other faces in Blaine's company. Everyone meets his gaze with a look of utter confusion.
"Um," Blaine says after a couple of awkward moments pass. "I can…," he says like he isn't even sure why he lets the conversation flow.
Sebastian clicks his tongue, then turns to smile at Kurt as he points a 'that-guy' finger at Blaine. "He ain't making it any easier for us, is he?" he asks Kurt brazenly, rhetorically.
At this, Kurt's eyes turn into lead; Jesse furrows his brow and turns a bemused look at Kurt as he drapes his arm over the back of Kurt's seat.
"I'm Sebastian, by the way," Sebastian goes on, stretching out a hand for Kurt to shake. Kurt just—stares at him, the look in his eyes hard as steel, inscrutable and unyielding and so dangerously quiet Blaine actually feels the fright race down his spine.
He doesn't even flinch to respond in any way, let alone take the hand Sebastian offered.
"Ouch," Sebastian says when his hand doesn't end up being shaken, but the unfaltering grin on his face gives away just how unaffected he is by the snub. "Those were some nice moves though," he lets Kurt know as he raises his drink at him in cheers before taking a sip.
Jesse frowns; Kurt just stares.
Taking a gulp, Sebastian finally takes in the curly fellow sitting to Kurt's right and flashes him a perfunctory, frankly disinterested smile.
"Oh by the way Blaine," Sebastian rushes to say as if it only now occurred to him. "So since you never seemed to have called that number of mine, I presume you boys didn't need my help with getting it on after all?" Sebastian surmises, directing a malicious grin at Kurt.
A tint of recognition flickers over Kurt's face and the steel in his eyes seems to grow ever thicker as Jesse gawks between everyone present with an amused beam he tries to hold back, looking like he doesn't get why he's the only one to find this utterly hilarious—before finally, he bursts into giggles, clutching his stomach as he shakes with suppressed laughter.
Finn, on the other hand, doesn't find this funny in the slightest, sitting there red-faced and completely out of his depth; Rachel keeps nudging him furiously, giving him an 'I-thought-you-told-me-everything' glare askance, to which he keeps shrugging, giving her a panicked 'I-thought-I-knew-everything' look.
"Wait a minute," Jesse says to Sebastian, lifting up his hand when he comes down from his snickering. "Let me get this straight. You think Blaine's—not…?" he asks Sebastian incredulously, smirking up at him like the latter's making a colossal fool of himself right now, especially with the presumptuous way he's conducting himself while being so wholly wrong about the heart of the matter.
At Jesse's naive confidence, Sebastian raises his eyebrows sharply, tilting his head back in surprise, then turns to look at Blaine like it's only getting more interesting.
Blaine ignores him, trying to catch Kurt's eye instead, full of compunction about all of this, hoping the hazel warmness in his own eyes would find a way to placate the imminent storm in Kurt's.
When Kurt does eye him briefly, it's like a bucket of cold water is unleashed over Blaine's head. The unforgiving blue of Kurt's gaze is razor-edged, cutting through Blaine's heart like a hot knife through butter before Kurt—disregards him just like that and turns to watch Sebastian's little show instead, eyes dead cold.
Sebastian turns back to Jesse, clearing his throat in lieu of commenting. "Sorry, and you are…?"
"Jesse St. James, Blaine's friend."
Sebastian eyes Kurt in Jesse's embrace knowingly.
"And Kurt's boyfriend," Jesse adds in a gentle yet assertive manner, squeezing Kurt's hand.
Sebastian only raises his eyebrows, ducking his head to look at his drink demonstratively as he presses his lips together in a smile he puts on an act of trying to hold back.
Jesse frowns at Sebastian's obnoxious smirk, for the first time thrown off balance, for the first time sensing that something has escaped him, now just out of his reach. Kurt's eye bore into the table, his jaws so dangerously set, his free hand crushed into a pale fist; Rachel has her mouth covered with her hand, her elbow propped on the table as she watches Finn at a numb loss with her huge brown eyes.
Blaine keeps watching Kurt, insistent.
"Yeah," Sebastian says at last, turning to look at Blaine. "This is even more messed up than I thought," he says with a sneer, so irritatingly pleased with himself. "Well, you know what? Let me just leave you three to it," he says, regarding them all with an adoring gaze, beaming at them like the sweethearts they are, in his mind. "For once, you fellas might just get my job done for me," he says, pointing his cocktail at them before he turns to Blaine one last time. "Enjoy your night out, tiger." He juts his chin at him, then brushes the back of his hand against the line of Blaine's jaw before he leaves.
Blaine jerks back slightly, staring up at Sebastian like an animal locked up in a cage. Jesse grimaces in utter bafflement, mouthing "what the fuck" as Sebastian retreats to his booth where a pack of similar-looking preppy-pompous-smug douchebags sits waiting for him.
An awkward silence ensues; Jesse looks at his friends, his face contorted with honest confusion; Rachel clears her throat and raises her hands to gather her hair into a loose braid; Finn sits a little flushed with his gaze fixed at something in the distance; Blaine scratches at the back of his curly head. Finally, Jesse's eyes settle on him.
"I think I'm thirsty," Kurt says suddenly, his voice laced with an aloof indifference as he gets up.
Jesse keeps watching Blaine as Kurt wiggles his way out of the booth and lays absent hands on Kurt's hips when Kurt squeezes past him.
"What do you guys want?" Kurt asks, raising his eyebrows when he's standing.
They make their orders, a little uneasy to look each other in the eye.
"What was all of that about, Blaine?" Jesse asks in an unsure voice as Kurt leaves.
"Sorry," Blaine waves a dismissive hand. "It's the guy who was hitting on me when you left that night, at the gay bar."
Finn's eyes go wide as Rachel turns to look at Finn, curious.
"Yeah, I figured as much," Jesse mutters as his gaze wanders off to the side, watching Sebastian take shots with his friends. "The place's full of his ilk," Jesse mumbles, absent-minded. "But what was he talking about?" Jesse asks Blaine like he's afraid to know the answer, eyeing him carefully.
Blaine looks up at him like a deer caught in the headlights. Shrugs.
"I have"—Blaine turns to look back over his shoulder where Sebastian sits—"no clue," Blaine exhales when he turns back. "Must've thought I was with Kurt, or…," Blaine suggests, gesturing with his hand.
Rachel and Finn share comically awkward glances.
"We left together, so…," Blaine tries to elaborate clumsily.
"Ah," Jesse nods, and nobody really notices the way he's a little too eager to take the point.
As the room gets filled with somebody's singing, Jesse looks down at the phone he's fumbling with on the table. Rachel purses her lips in sympathy when she and Blaine catch eyes.
"Well sometimes, I go out—by myself; and I look across the water," Brittany sings, dance-walking gracefully around the cozy little podium in front of the large screen where the lyrics are being displayed.
"Oh-oh, yeah," Santana chimes in next to her. "And I think of all the things, what you're doing," she sings as Brittany dances around her. "And in my head I paint a picture," Santana leans back a little, maneuvering the mic away as her voice gets more intense.
They arrived shortly after the Sebastian incident and quickly sensed the tension in the air. It took Blaine one look of Santana's dark eyes to motion with his head inconspicuously to the booth where Sebastian was at. Then, he texted her, "The guy that gave me his number. Talked to us."
No one seemed to be in the mood for singing, so Santana took the initiative to drag Britt over to the little stage. The line wasn't long to wait, and soon they were there, livening up the hitherto melancholy mood in this karaoke bar with their upbeat choice of song.
"Oh won't you come on over? Stop making the fool—out of me!" Santana warbles, motioning with her hand as her voice jumps the notes skillfully.
"Oh why don't you come on over, Valerie!" she and Britt sing in unison.
A few people from the crowd step up, energized by the girls' performance. They find a spot by the stage where there's a little bit of space and start to dance in a simple, joyful, unpretentious manner as they clap to the beat.
Valerie
"Pa, pa-pa-da-pa!" Rachel, Finn, Jesse, and Blaine chant animatedly from where they sit, pressing hands to their mouths for better reverberation.
Valerie
A couple of others join the couple in the dancing area, singing along as they move.
Kurt sips at his drink, then runs the tongue over his lips silently.
Valerie, Valerie
Everyone at their booth seems to have disposed of the uneasiness Sebastian's presence brought on, but Kurt still remains quiet, watching the girls perform with an inscrutable face as he drinks.
"Oh why don't you come on over, Valerie!" Britt and Santana wrap it up together, stealing happy looks at each other from the corners of their eyes. Most of the audience claps, Blaine and Rachel cheer them on.
When the girls get to their booth, the guys and Rachel are too busy to squeeze at their hands and to drawl a teasing "Nice!" to them—to notice the next person that steps onto the podium.
"Ah, let's give it up for the girls, they killed it," Sebastian calls into the mic in what seems to be a genuine encouragement, clapping himself the best he can manage with a microphone in his hand.
Santana turns to look at him charily and brushes off a strand of her hair from her cheek as she and Brittany plop down next to Jesse. Jesse snuggles closer to Kurt in order to free up some space, him and Brittany not really paying attention.
Everybody else is.
"In fact, earlier this night I had the pleasure to make friends with their lively company over there," Sebastian says in a smarmy, purring voice as he gestures to their booth, turning the audience's attention to them. "And would like to dedicate this next song to my newly-made friends," he says with a devilish smile, winking at Blaine when they catch eyes. "And don't mind the pronouns, if I may ask you," he mutters into the mic as an afterthought.
Kurt inhales, leaning back in his seat.
"Oh, that's nice, isn't it?" Britt asks everyone softly as the first chords strike, accompanied by the dulcet cymbal beat. Santana, being the furthest one out, turns to catch her eye and shakes her head no gently. "Oh," Brittany mouths, losing her spirit with one look at Santana's face.
When the chord pattern starts to ring a bell, Jesse leans forward a bit to get a better view of Sebastian where the girls sit blocking it. He frowns, turning to look at Blaine with a lost look on his face.
Jesse is a friend
yeah, i know he's been a good friend of mine
Blaine's face is perfectly blank, heart in his throat, as he beholds the performance Sebastian puts on for him. For them, for fuck's fucking sake. If Blaine thought their earlier encounter was as disastrous as it could possibly get, he hasn't known life until now.
Kurt rolls his eyes and crosses his arms, still laid-back in his seat, not even bothering to act like he's surprised.
but lately something's changed, it ain't hard to define
Jesse's got himself a boy and i want to make him mine
Finn and Rachel almost synchronically raise their hands to cover their mouths, eyes blown wide in horror. Santana, on the other hand, straightens her back domineeringly and turns her whole body to face Sebastian, piercing him with a death stare. She flexes her jaws.
and he's watching him with those eyes
and he's loving him with that body—i just know it!
Sebastian sings flawlessly, closing his eyes with no care for the actual lyrics being streamed behind his back.
Jesse watches Blaine while Blaine keeps his eyes fixed on Sebastian on purpose, feeling his cheeks go hot and cold under the demanding fierceness of Jesse's gaze.
and he's holding him in his arms late late at night
you know i wish that i had Jesse's boy!
Rachel looks between Blaine, Kurt, and Finn like a desperate fish cast on a shore, helpless and clueless as to what to do now; Finn presses his lips in frustration, curling up a fist. Blaine is motionless, his back turned to Finn, Kurt, and Rachel, his profile turned to Jesse, Britt, and Santana. Even if he wanted to look at either one of them, he wouldn't let himself.
"Where can I find a man like that?" Sebastian belts out right before the music ceases to play—a silent pause—and on goes the next verse. "I'll play along with this charade," Sebastian sings, his voice gone soft, and Rachel would probably note his vocal skills if she wasn't so distracted with losing her mind over the calamitous straits their situation just got into! "That doesn't seem to be a reason to change," Sebastian keeps on going, making lively faces as he sings.
Eliciting no response from Blaine who has his eyes glued to the weirdo on stage, Jesse turns his head to look at Finn and Rachel, wondering if they have an idea in mind of what the actual fuck is going on.
At the sight of Jesse's lost face, Rachel averts her gaze downward. Finn clears his throat and lifts his drink up to his mouth, opting to watch the performance.
"You know I feel—so—dirty when they start talking cute; I wanna tell him that I love him but the point is pro'bly moot—And he's watching him with those eyes!" Sebastian belts out, hugging his own waist as he wiggles his shoulders, overtly mocking. "And he's lovin' him with that body—I just know it!"
"I'll go get some air," Kurt's casual, distant voice echoes around their booth against the loud music when Kurt gets up and tries to squeeze past Jesse, Britt and Santana.
Jesse's attention is quickly dispersed when Kurt starts to leave; he's torn as he tries to grasp what's happening all around him, and before his hand reaches out to touch Kurt's thigh—Kurt's out and going.
Blaine, being the furthest one out on the other end, watches the back of Kurt's head disappear into the crowd near the exit that leads to the smoking area. Finally, Blaine turns to look at Rachel and Finn, not knowing what to do, and sees Rachel blow her eyes wide and motion her head madly to where Kurt went as she gives Blaine an awfully conspicuous hint about what he must do next.
Blaine purses his lips, fearful, but turns back to watch Sebastian and waits for him to drive the show to its end. Defeated, Jesse also turns to watch the rest of it.
As soon as Sebastian steps off the stage and gets lost in the crowd (as the night hours neared, the bar got crammed up with more and more people,) Blaine also gets up swiftly and motions to where Sebastian's booth used to be seen. "Sorry, I'll go—um—talk to him. To Sebastian, I mean," he explains to the group before he turns to leave, not waiting to catch eyes with Jesse.
When Jesse gets up and tries to climb out of the booth as well, Rachel starts nudging Finn furiously to do something.
"Um, hey, man," Finn calls and waits with cold feet for when Jesse turns around to look at him. He does once he's standing by Santana's side. "If you wanna find Kurt, I—you shouldn't, now," Finn puts it in a not-so-smooth way; an awkward moment of silence follows. Jesse raises his eyebrows. "No, trust me; it's better to leave him be when he says 'I'll go get some air'—it's something we've been through as one of our coded signals for 'don't come near me until I come to you'," Finn comes up with a slightly better explanation this time, staring Jesse down with certitude. "Just—how about you and I go get us the next round and wait for Kurt to come to us together?" Finn suggests as he starts to climb out; Rachel gives him a secret, grateful pat on the back when he squeezes past her. "This was a whole lotta weird, the thing that just happened, but I'm sure Blaine's onto it. Probably just a misunderstanding," Finn keeps talking some kind of sweet talk when he claps Jesse on the back and starts leading him to the bar.
Rachel, Santana, and Britt are left sitting alone, the former two breathing a quiet sigh of relief. Britt steals a fry from the plate in the middle of their table when Rachel and Santana catch eyes, the latter gives the former a perfunctory smile right before she turns to Britt and starts up a private conversation.
"Sorry—to interrupt," Rachel says, reaching out an apologetic hand. "But—do you know who that—was?" she asks Santana, curious to gain insight into the situation via Blaine's closest friend's point of view. "I mean I certainly thought Finn told me everything…"
Judging by Santana's face, she seems to be less than excited at the concept of being interrupted but does swallow the thousands of quips racing through her mind as she turns to look through the crowd in search of the sleazy meerkat.
"This was the guy who hit on Blaine when he and Kurt were left alone at the gay bar," she mumbles, her eyes still searching. "Apparently, our boys had some fun that Blaine just forgot to mention to me when he told me about that night. Something that gave them out to that Meerkat."
Britt nudges Santana softly with her shoulder. "I told you those were dolphins," she corrects her in a gentle voice.
When Blaine steps out, there are quite a few people socializing there, some of them smoking, some of them not, and the place seems to be nicely designed and cozily lit against the fresh, quiet, dark summer night. The freshness of it, though, gets mingled by the wafts of cigarette smoke, which Blaine gladly inhales deep into his lungs, closing his eyes for a peaceful second.
One of The Pixies' songs is playing softly, echoing off the walls and into the open space where the patches of the dark sky can be seen right through the branches of the trees that cloister the outdoor smoking area.
hey
must be
a devil
between us
Kurt stands with a lit cigarette in his hand some feet away from a pack of loud people, watching the light-bluish spot on the sky just above the horizon where the sun disappeared some hours ago.
It takes Blaine some time to find him. Blaine takes some time to watch him from afar. Then slowly, he makes his way toward him, hands tucked in his pockets.
Kurt closes his eyes, exhaling the smoke when Blaine steps up to him, close. Gently, Blaine takes Kurt's cigarette, sparks racing through them both when their fingers do so little as brush against each other. Kurt strains his jaw and crosses his arms, opening his eyes to look at Blaine.
but hey
where
have you
been?
Blaine takes a drag, then drops his head back and holds the smoke inside his lungs for a wantonly long amount of time. Kurt stands still in front of him, eyes brushing down the stretch of Blaine's neck as Blaine lets the smoke out.
When Blaine pulls his head back, he looks Kurt in the eye and offers him his cigarette back. Kurt takes it; Blaine watches him make the next drag.
if you go
i will surely die
"Our last one will be ours," Blaine says a sentence that makes little sense, but he has little care for it. He takes a tiny step forward, his chest and Kurt's forearm that Kurt still hugs himself with touch. Blaine lets his nose press to Kurt's shoulder softly as Kurt exhales the smoke, his head turned to the side.
we're cha-
-a-ined
we're cha-
ained!
Blaine lets one of his hands ghost over Kurt's hip warmly as he nuzzles the curve of Kurt's shoulder, soft and quiet in his movements. Kurt pinches the cigarette between his fingers and hugs himself tighter when Blaine's nose starts inching closer to Kurt's neck and his warm hands finally make contact with Kurt's waist. Kurt turns to take another drag when Blaine brushes his nose against the pale lane of Kurt's neck, stroking his waist as he does so.
Blaine's curls start to tickle Kurt's cheek and Kurt squeezes his eyes shut as he finally lets go of himself, letting Blaine close the remaining inches between their bodies. He tugs Kurt slowly into a full-fledged embrace, snug and warm and so very much loving as Blaine presses his brow into the crane of Kurt's neck that Kurt feels the damned heaviness press on the bridge of his nose, burn at his closed eyes.
Kurt throws his head back in frustration as Blaine pulls him closer, angry at the evanescence of his desire to even smoke when Blaine's all wrapped around him. Kurt throws his cigarette to the ground which he never does, then crushes it with his foot, exasperated as he stomps on it.
Blaine hugs him tighter to his chest as he nuzzles up against the line of Kurt's jaw and strokes a soothing hand down Kurt's lower back.
uh uh!
all night
and Mary ain't you tired
of this
uh!
Kurt sucks in a shuddering breath, staring up at the shelter above them, very much close to mouthing a cuss before he finally—lets himself wrap his arms around Blaine's frame and collects him closer to his chest, truly, truly helpless not to.
Blaine noses up Kurt's earlobe, keeping Kurt's back warm with his fingers splayed out against its strong expanse. Kurt's eyes flutter closed as he hides his face in Blaine's ticklish mop of curls, pressing one hand at Blaine's shoulder blades and sliding the other one up into Blaine's hair where it closes around a fistful of curls.
"Kurt," Blaine whimpers softly into his ear, nudging his head back into Kurt's grip on his hair.
Kurt's chest expands as he sighs shakily, bumping their temples together. "Hm?" he asks Blaine, staring at the sky in the distance—the little patch visible behind the city.
"Will you take me to Lima?" Blaine asks in a small, raspy voice, thumbs stroking the soft fabric of Kurt's cashmere V-neck, both of them one amalgam of entangled limbs and the warmth shared between them. "Please?" Blaine whispers like a secret into Kurt's ear, and Kurt's brow furrows as his grip on Blaine grows tighter.
Kurt sighs and turns to press his cheek to Blaine's, taking a moment to just stand like this in the secluded corner of the smoking area, cradling each other like there's no life for them on their own.
Kurt feels Blaine's heart threaten to jump out of his chest with how mad-fast it beats in anticipation of Kurt's answer, and Kurt finds his own heart start to gallop, trying to catch up with Blaine's.
Kurt closes his eyes, frowns, and presses his lips to Blaine's ear. "Of course I will, Blaine," Kurt finally responds.
And Blaine feels something inside him break at the raw, painful, defenseless quality Kurt's voice takes on at this moment. He kisses Kurt's cheek, the line of Kurt's jaw, the soft skin on Kurt's neck, reaching up to hold the back of Kurt's neck when he does so.
"Thank you," Blaine rumbles in between the warm kisses he showers Kurt's neck with. Kurt's other hand rises to cup the back of Blaine's head. "Thank you," Blaine repeats when he pulls back the tiniest bit to look Kurt in the eye.
Blaine kisses the corner of Kurt's mouth, so soft Blaine feels like crying and so rosy and perfect Blaine has to lick his own lips when he pulls back to stop himself from turning this into anything more than what they can afford here and now.
Blaine's skin is on violent fire just from this small, chaste touch and it takes everything Blaine has in him to take a step back then, and to let go of Kurt, and to take his eyes off of his flushed face, off of his inviting mouth that fell open when Blaine kissed it, off of his eyes that Kurt still holds closed, and off of the sweet reddened spots on Kurt's skin where Blaine mouthed at it.
It takes every fucking scrap of Blaine's willpower to turn away then and to start walking and to push the exit door open and to return to the dark, stuffy, loud, sickening-him-to-his-stomach reality.