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[fic - Glee] The Many Shades of Sugar, R
Title: The Many Shades of Sugar
Rating: R
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine
Spoilers (if any): None.
Warnings (if any): None.
Word Count: ~3,900
Summary: Kurt forms a secret cabal of grad student spouses; terrible things happen.
Author's Note:
This continues from:
Boston: Following Home | These Thousand Names for Gratitude | All the Honesty of Politics | Circles as the Dark Winds Down | The Distance Between Ohio and Boston | All the Pretty Little Horses | Languages You Don't Even Know | Fauna and Flora | Where Water Doesn't Speak | Under Glass We Are Expected to Blossom | You Were Someone Else Before We Came Here
D.C.: Strategies and Tactics
Kurt gets a sales job at what he insists on referring to as a major mid-range department store.
Half his mouth curls into a sneer every time he says it, and he makes Blaine swear on pain of grave personal injury that he will never, ever tell anyone he has been reduced to this.
“It's only temporary,” Kurt says airily whenever it comes up, and he never mentions that he's a little scared he's lying.
*
It takes three weeks of Kurt both hating his job and discovering he's good at it -- “Every wife taking her hopeless husband suit shopping chooses me. They hate me, the husbands, but my commissions are going to be amazing.” -- before Blaine is able to convince him to join a mailing list his program has set up for the significant others.
Kurt doesn't see the point of it. The thought of having to fake his way through a bunch of friendships because they're all involved with grad students makes him shudder, and in the second week of Blaine's cajoling he has a series of nightmares in which everyone laughs at him when he explains that he's waiting to get to New York.
One night, when he's so shaken he's not entirely sure when and where he is, he has to wake Blaine up in order to be certain he hasn't already gone to New York and failed.
*
“I hate all these people,” Kurt informs him six days after joining the list. Blaine is leaning on his shoulders and kissing his neck.
“Oh, come on, why?” Blaine asks as he unknots Kurt's cream and rose checked bowtie.
Kurt tries to push him away.
“They say things like hubby unironically, and there's a girl who sends daily email on what she's packed for her boyfriend's lunch, with recipes. Bad recipes! I've been invited to church, twice, and today someone forwarded an email warning about kidney thieves and gang signs.”
“Sorry?” Blaine offers, pulling the tie free.
“Mmmhmm.” Kurt looks at him skeptically and completely ignores the attempt at seduction. “Do your classmates seem like they're married to crazy people?”
“No. Not really. Well, except the guy with the lunches. Who invited you to church?”
“The gay Catholic couple that believes in chastity.”
“No way, seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“I didn't even know about that.”
“Consider yourself lucky.”
“You really hate me right now, don't you?”
“So much,” Kurt concedes.
“So,” he says, “is everyone on the list actually participating?”
“Not really. Why?”
“Maybe the ones who aren't participating are just as horrified as you are.”
“Blaine Warbler, are you suggesting I start a rogue list?”
“Not officially.” Blaine is laughing; Kurt hasn't called him that in years.
*
Kurt has never enjoyed composing an email so much in his entire life.
*
Kurt receives three replies nearly instantly: one from a woman named Seanna who actually offers a detailed critique of the latest cookie recipe; another from a guy named Henry that refers to Blaine as Anderson and jokingly laments the epic bromance he seems to be having with Henry's wife; and a third from a fellow named George who suggests they discuss alcohol instead of sugar, preferably while drinking some.
The other two invitees remain countries never heard from.
But three is enough, and Kurt claps his hands in front of him excitedly before shooting off a quick email to Alex who has somehow managed to remain an eternal student in Rome: I am forming a secret cabal.
She writes back and asks if he's planning to burn down the Macy's.
*
The cabal's first gathering occurs at Kurt's and Blaine's apartment nine days later on a Saturday afternoon while Blaine's at the library working on a group project.
Seanna brings two bottles of wine, George shows up with a bottle of Knob Creek that Kurt suspects he may drink the entirety of without assistance, and Henry brings flowers.
“I think you're my favorite,” Kurt murmurs at him when he arrives.
*
It's awkward at first. None of them really have anything to talk about other than the horrible mailing list, and it still takes a few drinks until they really start dishing.
“Oh, I went to church with them,” George is saying as he gestures wildly with a glass.
“Wait, wait, why?” Henry asks.
George shrugs.
“I have a better question,” Kurt announces. “Why did they invite you?”
“I think they invited all of us,” Seanna says.
“Okay, but since you're all straight, I know something you don't,” Kurt says coyly.
“I have totally eaten pussy,” Seanna says in her defense.
“I think I love you all,” Henry says, raising his glass and then downing the rest of his wine.
“I'm never going to forgive you for stealing my thunder,” Kurt says to Seanna.
“Wait, they eat pussy?” George asks.
Henry starts laughing to hard he has to rest his forehead on the kitchen table.
“No, dummy. They practice chastity. They wanted Blaine and I to know about their godly love.”
“Holy shit, what?” Seanna asks, spluttering.
“Well, just me. Apparently it was news to Blaine too.”
“I don't believe you,” George says.
Kurt grins wickedly and goes to fetch his laptop. “I saved the email.”
*
When Blaine gets home just as the sky is considering dusk, Seanna and Kurt are standing in the middle of the living room. Her hands are on his hips, and she's trying to convince him to take her belly dance class, while George picks out random melodies one handed on the piano, and Henry sprawls across the couch contemplating the ceiling.
“I think I'm interrupting something,” Blaine says awkwardly. He hadn't expected they'd still be here when he got home or that everyone would be drunk.
They all shout his name in greeting, and it takes Blaine a moment to realize that of course it's obvious who he is.
“Hey, baby,” Kurt says after he shimmies out of Seanna's grasp to kiss Blaine hello.
“Do you want me to make myself scarce?” Blaine murmurs.
“No, no, no,” Kurt says, grabbing him by both hands and dragging him into the room properly. “Come meet everyone.”
*
Two hours later, Blaine is taking every glass of alcohol pressed into Kurt's hands by George and drinking it himself as he cooks salmon burgers on the patio grill.
On some level it reminds him of the parties they had early in their freshman year when he was miserable and Kurt was still trying to figure out how to endure other people. When he catches Kurt's eye as he slides the burgers onto a platter, he knows Kurt's thinking it too.
Blaine looks away and smiles, remembering their last night in the Boston apartment, Kurt oddly sweet and closed off as he packed up the last of the cardboard wardrobes, folding away the ridiculous ivory pajamas he'd worn their first night there.
It was the moment where Blaine finally understood that clothes were, for a long time, the only friends Kurt had.
*
It's after eleven when Seanna offers to drive George home as Blaine and Henry chat about dinner and double dating and doing it all with less booze while Kurt tipsily totters through the apartment trying to clean up.
When everyone's gone, Blaine has to work hard not to tell Kurt how proud he is of him for making the best of so many somethings that aren't.
“Fuck me drunk?” Kurt says when Blaine steers him away from the dishes and leads him to bed.
Blaine nods, but says nothing; it's been a long time since they've done this quite this way, and there's something that shames him a little about how hard he gets for Kurt pliant and slightly absent.
After and still messy, Kurt giggles and murmurs something Blaine can't make out, before curling into his side and falling asleep.
Blaine lies awake stroking his hand over Kurt's ribs, wondering absently about whether and how they'll be different when Kurt finally learns to dance, when Blaine has an actual job, and when Kurt becomes a star.
It all seems like too much, and tonight he can't help but wish that they never, ever grow up.
*
As the weather cools, and Kurt really does start going to Seanna's belly dancing classes -- “There's a long history of male belly dancers, just so you know.” -- the cabal morphs into Sunday brunches, couples dinners, and a party to mark the impending end of the semester.
Blaine invites most of the people in his year without really thinking about it, which is how the existence of and reason for the cabal gets out.
Technically it's George's fault, because George is perpetually too loud and too drunk not to walk up to people and address them by various cabal epithets when he figures out who they are. It doesn't help that his fiance, who doesn't seem to drink at all, is too amused to stop him.
*
Kurt watches the whole thing spiral out of control in slow, delicate motion until Henry sidles up to him and says, “You realize this whole thing is going to come down on Blaine's head, yeah?”
It's the first time Henry has ever referred to Blaine by his first name, and Kurt nods. He hadn't realized it, not consciously, but it makes sense. And when it comes, not tonight, but soon, he knows it will be awful, in part because Blaine will be asked to control Kurt's behavior as if he's a woman or a dog.
*
Two days later the cookie recipe girl sends an email to the partner list that's worthy of Rachel Berry at her worst, if Rachel had ever really been about feeling persecuted instead of just at sea.
She suggests that Kurt has violated not only the rules of human decency (a point which Kurt is perhaps willing to concede even if she did totally deserve it) but the rules of grad school partner etiquette.
It's just all so stupid that Kurt can't help but blow up on the list about how no one has to like everyone, and how dare they think friendship is about making their lives look alike in the name of some bullshit their partners probably don't even care about or want.
Things devolve from there, someone actually uses the phrase drunken fornicators and Kurt can't even tell if it's ironic or not.
By the time Blaine gets home from a tutoring gig Kurt has wound up having to defend his honor and is slamming things around the kitchen in a fit of pique.
*
“What did I do?” Blaine asks, almost amused. Clearly, the car crash hasn't reached him yet.
Kurt sighs. “You didn't do anything other than be so insanely naïve as to invite your entire class to a party organized by drunk people who hate them. So I suck. George is awful. Seanna eats pussy. I don't even understand Henry, and everyone at school is going to hate you, and it's all my fault!”
Blaine takes a deep breath. It's times like this that it's very important for him not to tell Kurt that he's being irrational.
Instead he grabs his boyfriend's wrists tightly and holds them down at his sides until he stops moving.
“I'm not mad at you. No one is mad at me, yet. And you don't actually care if those people like you or not. So I love you, and it will be fine.”
Eventually Kurt whimpers, rests his head on Blaine's shoulder, and tries to believe him.
*
“Jesus christ, everyone I go to school with is like, two,” Blaine says slamming his laptop shut.
“Let me guess,” Kurt says dryly, from where he's sitting at the piano running through something he's considering for an audition song. “Your mailing list just exploded, and they do all hate you.”
“No,” Blaine says as he tries to do the math. “Probably only about 60%. One of them suggested I get better at controlling my wife.”
Kurt arches an eyebrow less at the fact that it happened and more at the fact that he predicted it.
Blaine smiles.
“Why are you smiling?” Kurt asks nervously.
“I suggested that perhaps he might want to spend less time being a bitch and more time being intimate with his wife so as to be less confused moving forward.”
Kurt's not sure whether he's amused or horrified at Blaine trying way too hard to defend his honor, but it is rather sweet in a hateful, hateful way.
“So what do you think happens next?”
Blaine shrugs. “Projects. Papers. Holidays. No one will even remember this in January.”
*
“Next year let's have Christmas here,” Kurt says as they throw their luggage into the car for the drive back to Lima.
The route's just enough longer than the one from Boston that they're not even going to try to do it one day. They'll do the eight hours to Pittsburgh, crash with Santana; and then she'll ride with them on to Ohio the next day.
Blaine freezes for a moment at Kurt's suggestion.
“It's not about Santana,” Kurt feels the need to clarify.
“Then --”
“I just think we're ready. To have our own Christmas. Everyone can come to us.”
“Really?”
Kurt chuckles. “You look like you've been waiting forever for me to ask.”
“Maybe I have.”
“Why?”
Blaine shrugs. “Don't know.”
“Well, let's tell everyone. This year. So they're prepared. For next year.”
“Okay,” Blaine says, trying to tamp down his excitement about what else this might mean in the secret languages of Kurt's brain.
“Your parents too.”
“I don't think --”
“Blaine. I can totally get your father to come to Christmas dinner at our home. In fact I'm sure of it.”
Blaine smiles, but it's weaker now. “Yeah. I know. I just wish I could.”
Kurt sighs as he realizes he's not thinking nearly enough before he speaks lately. “It has nothing to do with how much he loves you.”
Blaine rolls his eyes. “No, it has to do with how much of a man he thinks I am,” he says, the mere mention of the topic clearly enough to exhaust him.
Kurt stops himself from saying several nasty things, some of which target Blaine, some of which target Blaine's father, and some of which just target himself.
“Actually,” he manages, “it has to do with how good I am at manipulating him, which I can do, because I don't really give a shit.”
By the time they get on the road Kurt is sure things between them have become much too silent.
*
“You know,” Kurt says, once they're a good hour past Frederick, “this whole thing where you get really upset about people questioning your masculinity annoys the crap out of me.”
“Why? It happens to you all the time.”
“Wow.” Kurt is sincerely stunned. “I know I don't always think before I speak, but apparently you never do.”
“I didn't mean --”
Kurt sighs. “Yes, you did Blaine.”
“But --”
“Not a word,” he admonishes, taking a hand off the wheel to shove towards Blaine's face. “Actually, no. That's not true. I have questions.”
“Okay,” Blaine says nervously.
“One. Am I really supposed to be less offended by comments about my gender because it happens all the time? Seriously?”
“That wasn't what I meant.”
“Really?”
“You tell everyone your middle name is Elizabeth.”
“Yes, and I own like five skirts. Your point?”
“You can't be surprised when people make assumptions.”
“I don't have to be surprised to be offended.”
Blaine sighs.
“Are you going to sulk?” Kurt snaps.
“I am if you keep chasing this so hard I can't even formulate what I'm trying to say.”
Kurt grits his teeth and then lets out a long slow breath. “All right. That's fair. iPod?” Kurt says, snapping his fingers at Blaine.
It's a peace offering, letting him choose the music, but they're still not really talking by the time they hit Pittsburgh, something that isn't helped by the fact that their GPS seems to hate the city.
“I can't turn left,” Kurt shouts at the device. “There's a building!”
“I think it's thinks we're up there,” Blaine says, pointing to an overpass.
“I hate this.”
“We could --”
“We are not calling Santana to have her come rescue us.”
*
Eventually, they call Santana to have her come rescue them, and Kurt's honestly relieved, happy to be following along behind her and not having to think.
When they clamber out of their cars at her place, Kurt shoulders an overnight bag for him and Blaine and tries not to resent the way Blaine's shoulders relax around her they way they haven't once during the drive.
“Is my secret incestuous brother not fucking you enough?” Santana asks when she sees Kurt's face.
“Why did I agree to this?” Kurt sighs to the ceiling in her building's parking garage.
*
That night Kurt cooks them dinner just to have something to do other than pretend he's not furious and confused and worried about Blaine, so he's grateful when Blaine opens a bottle of wine they brought as a peace offering, and Santana suggests they mess with the karaoke program on her new video game machine.
Blaine winds up singing Dusty Springfield to him while climbing inappropriately on Santana's surprisingly nice modernist furniture. The song makes him swoon a little and he suspects there's some coded message in the song that Blaine will have to explain to him later after Santana's gone to bed.
“That was surprisingly hot,” Santana says.
Blaine thanks her, clearly deeply charmed by her approval.
“I think it made Hummel's panties wet.”
Kurt elbows her, hard, but then gives a breathy little sigh and says, “God, you have no idea.”
Santana shrieks with laughter then, and a moment later Blaine is the only one of them upright as she and Kurt have a tickle fight that also seems to involve biting in the middle of her living room floor.
“Stop, oh god, stop,” Kurt eventually gasps holding his sides. “I'm in pain I'm laughing so hard. Fuck.”
*
Later, when Santana's retreated to her bedroom and they're pulling out the sofa bed, Blaine says, “I figured it out.”
“What?”
“What I was trying to say in the car.”
“Can it wait until we get in bed?” Kurt asks, thinking the dark will give their clumsiness cover.
“Yeah.”
“Thanks.”
*
When he slides into bed next to Blaine, Kurt drapes himself half across him and slides a hand up under his t-shirt because Kurt needs to touch Blaine's skin to breathe.
“I think neither of us looks like what we are,” Blaine says without preamble. “Sometimes I'd rather have your bargain instead of mine. That's all I meant.”
“What do you mean?” Kurt asks. He knows exactly what Blaine means, but he wants to hear him say it anyway.
“You never really have to come out to people, do you?”
“No,” Kurt says, and there's bitterness there he can't hide.
“I do. All the time. I resent that. People tell me I shouldn't, you know. At school, when we talk about our career plans. That it'd be easier if I.... No one ever gives you advice like that, do they?”
“No one other than me,” Kurt admits. “Although not for a long time.” He stops himself from asking why any of this should even matter to Blaine's career plans.
“When that whole thing went down with the partner list and then my list --”
“Oh god. I am sorry about that, even if I think most of your classmates and nearly all of their spouses are imbeciles.”
“No, no, let me finish. When they do shit like call you my wife; I feel like I'm supposed to get angry on your behalf. But it makes me angry on my behalf. Because I'm not straight. And I'm not the man in this --”
“You're not the woman either,” Kurt says softly.
“I know, but --”
“You never saw yourself with someone like me did you?” Kurt asks. It's something he's known for a long time, but never something he's particularly wanted to hear Blaine say out loud.
“No,” Blaine admits. “Why did you think it took me so long to really see you?”
Kurt smiles into the dark. “Cruelty.”
*
The next day, they sing their way to Ohio, Santana and Blaine running their voices until they're hoarse, and Kurt opting sensibly out as often as he thinks they'll let him get away with.
It doesn't escape Santana's notice.
“You going to start auditioning soon?” she asks from the backseat, where she's got her feet up and is trying to do her nails.
“Yeah,” Kurt says softly. “Headshots first, and I should really enroll in some proper dance classes --”
“Are you taking improper ones?”
“Kurt's learning to bellydance,” Blaine says without thinking.
“I hate you,” Kurt mumbles.
“Oh my god,” Santana says, swinging her legs to the floor and sitting up properly. “Tell me there are sheer little harem pants and a veil involved.”
“You are so offensive,” Kurt says.
“You really are,” Blaine adds.
“I hate you less now,” Kurt says to him.
“Good.”
“Okay, why the fuck are you learning to bellydance?” Santana asks.
“Because a friend of mine teaches it, and I need to get more comfortable moving.”
“So it's like an all the shame at once sort of thing?” she asks.
“Yeah. Pretty much,” Kurt says with a shrug.
“That's kind of cool,” she says.
Kurt breathes a sigh of relief when she lets it drop and leans his head against the window as he closes his eyes for a moment. He's almost about to drift off when his whole body snaps to attention with realization.
“How many people did you just text about this?” Kurt asks, whipping around in his seat as best he can with his seatbelt on.
“Everyone I know,” she says, holding up her phone and waggling it at him.
“Fuuuuuuuuuck,” Kurt groans.
Blaine just chuckles.
*
“Are we good?” Blaine asks as they turn into Kurt's old neighborhood after they've dropped Santana off.
“Never weren't,” Kurt says.
For a moment Blaine looks away from the road to give Kurt a highly skeptical look.
“Yeah, we're good.” Kurt says after a beat.
“I'm glad.”
“Are you?”
“Never better,” Blaine says.
“Always better,” Kurt corrects with considerable haughtiness.
Blaine chuckles as he pulls the car to a stop in front of the house.
“Always,” Blaine echoes back at him as they climb out into the world of their recent and shared childhoods, but the meaning's changed, and Kurt smiles as he glimpses the man Blaine's one day going to be.
Next: When Sea Levels Rise
Rating: R
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine
Spoilers (if any): None.
Warnings (if any): None.
Word Count: ~3,900
Summary: Kurt forms a secret cabal of grad student spouses; terrible things happen.
Author's Note:
This continues from:
Boston: Following Home | These Thousand Names for Gratitude | All the Honesty of Politics | Circles as the Dark Winds Down | The Distance Between Ohio and Boston | All the Pretty Little Horses | Languages You Don't Even Know | Fauna and Flora | Where Water Doesn't Speak | Under Glass We Are Expected to Blossom | You Were Someone Else Before We Came Here
D.C.: Strategies and Tactics
Kurt gets a sales job at what he insists on referring to as a major mid-range department store.
Half his mouth curls into a sneer every time he says it, and he makes Blaine swear on pain of grave personal injury that he will never, ever tell anyone he has been reduced to this.
“It's only temporary,” Kurt says airily whenever it comes up, and he never mentions that he's a little scared he's lying.
*
It takes three weeks of Kurt both hating his job and discovering he's good at it -- “Every wife taking her hopeless husband suit shopping chooses me. They hate me, the husbands, but my commissions are going to be amazing.” -- before Blaine is able to convince him to join a mailing list his program has set up for the significant others.
Kurt doesn't see the point of it. The thought of having to fake his way through a bunch of friendships because they're all involved with grad students makes him shudder, and in the second week of Blaine's cajoling he has a series of nightmares in which everyone laughs at him when he explains that he's waiting to get to New York.
One night, when he's so shaken he's not entirely sure when and where he is, he has to wake Blaine up in order to be certain he hasn't already gone to New York and failed.
*
“I hate all these people,” Kurt informs him six days after joining the list. Blaine is leaning on his shoulders and kissing his neck.
“Oh, come on, why?” Blaine asks as he unknots Kurt's cream and rose checked bowtie.
Kurt tries to push him away.
“They say things like hubby unironically, and there's a girl who sends daily email on what she's packed for her boyfriend's lunch, with recipes. Bad recipes! I've been invited to church, twice, and today someone forwarded an email warning about kidney thieves and gang signs.”
“Sorry?” Blaine offers, pulling the tie free.
“Mmmhmm.” Kurt looks at him skeptically and completely ignores the attempt at seduction. “Do your classmates seem like they're married to crazy people?”
“No. Not really. Well, except the guy with the lunches. Who invited you to church?”
“The gay Catholic couple that believes in chastity.”
“No way, seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“I didn't even know about that.”
“Consider yourself lucky.”
“You really hate me right now, don't you?”
“So much,” Kurt concedes.
“So,” he says, “is everyone on the list actually participating?”
“Not really. Why?”
“Maybe the ones who aren't participating are just as horrified as you are.”
“Blaine Warbler, are you suggesting I start a rogue list?”
“Not officially.” Blaine is laughing; Kurt hasn't called him that in years.
*
Kurt has never enjoyed composing an email so much in his entire life.
Dear Silent and Hopefully Sane Members of the MBA/MPP-Partner List:
Horrified by a list you only joined to make your partner happy and/or to satiate your misplaced and morbid curiosity?
Left with a desperate need for conversation about the horrors you've seen?
If so, I propose a discussion all about us (as opposed to truly mediocre cookie recipes).
Only replies with wit, wisdom and an understanding of the differences between light and dark brown sugar will be considered.
Sincerely,
Kurt Elizabeth Hummel
*
Kurt receives three replies nearly instantly: one from a woman named Seanna who actually offers a detailed critique of the latest cookie recipe; another from a guy named Henry that refers to Blaine as Anderson and jokingly laments the epic bromance he seems to be having with Henry's wife; and a third from a fellow named George who suggests they discuss alcohol instead of sugar, preferably while drinking some.
The other two invitees remain countries never heard from.
But three is enough, and Kurt claps his hands in front of him excitedly before shooting off a quick email to Alex who has somehow managed to remain an eternal student in Rome: I am forming a secret cabal.
She writes back and asks if he's planning to burn down the Macy's.
*
The cabal's first gathering occurs at Kurt's and Blaine's apartment nine days later on a Saturday afternoon while Blaine's at the library working on a group project.
Seanna brings two bottles of wine, George shows up with a bottle of Knob Creek that Kurt suspects he may drink the entirety of without assistance, and Henry brings flowers.
“I think you're my favorite,” Kurt murmurs at him when he arrives.
*
It's awkward at first. None of them really have anything to talk about other than the horrible mailing list, and it still takes a few drinks until they really start dishing.
“Oh, I went to church with them,” George is saying as he gestures wildly with a glass.
“Wait, wait, why?” Henry asks.
George shrugs.
“I have a better question,” Kurt announces. “Why did they invite you?”
“I think they invited all of us,” Seanna says.
“Okay, but since you're all straight, I know something you don't,” Kurt says coyly.
“I have totally eaten pussy,” Seanna says in her defense.
“I think I love you all,” Henry says, raising his glass and then downing the rest of his wine.
“I'm never going to forgive you for stealing my thunder,” Kurt says to Seanna.
“Wait, they eat pussy?” George asks.
Henry starts laughing to hard he has to rest his forehead on the kitchen table.
“No, dummy. They practice chastity. They wanted Blaine and I to know about their godly love.”
“Holy shit, what?” Seanna asks, spluttering.
“Well, just me. Apparently it was news to Blaine too.”
“I don't believe you,” George says.
Kurt grins wickedly and goes to fetch his laptop. “I saved the email.”
*
When Blaine gets home just as the sky is considering dusk, Seanna and Kurt are standing in the middle of the living room. Her hands are on his hips, and she's trying to convince him to take her belly dance class, while George picks out random melodies one handed on the piano, and Henry sprawls across the couch contemplating the ceiling.
“I think I'm interrupting something,” Blaine says awkwardly. He hadn't expected they'd still be here when he got home or that everyone would be drunk.
They all shout his name in greeting, and it takes Blaine a moment to realize that of course it's obvious who he is.
“Hey, baby,” Kurt says after he shimmies out of Seanna's grasp to kiss Blaine hello.
“Do you want me to make myself scarce?” Blaine murmurs.
“No, no, no,” Kurt says, grabbing him by both hands and dragging him into the room properly. “Come meet everyone.”
*
Two hours later, Blaine is taking every glass of alcohol pressed into Kurt's hands by George and drinking it himself as he cooks salmon burgers on the patio grill.
On some level it reminds him of the parties they had early in their freshman year when he was miserable and Kurt was still trying to figure out how to endure other people. When he catches Kurt's eye as he slides the burgers onto a platter, he knows Kurt's thinking it too.
Blaine looks away and smiles, remembering their last night in the Boston apartment, Kurt oddly sweet and closed off as he packed up the last of the cardboard wardrobes, folding away the ridiculous ivory pajamas he'd worn their first night there.
It was the moment where Blaine finally understood that clothes were, for a long time, the only friends Kurt had.
*
It's after eleven when Seanna offers to drive George home as Blaine and Henry chat about dinner and double dating and doing it all with less booze while Kurt tipsily totters through the apartment trying to clean up.
When everyone's gone, Blaine has to work hard not to tell Kurt how proud he is of him for making the best of so many somethings that aren't.
“Fuck me drunk?” Kurt says when Blaine steers him away from the dishes and leads him to bed.
Blaine nods, but says nothing; it's been a long time since they've done this quite this way, and there's something that shames him a little about how hard he gets for Kurt pliant and slightly absent.
After and still messy, Kurt giggles and murmurs something Blaine can't make out, before curling into his side and falling asleep.
Blaine lies awake stroking his hand over Kurt's ribs, wondering absently about whether and how they'll be different when Kurt finally learns to dance, when Blaine has an actual job, and when Kurt becomes a star.
It all seems like too much, and tonight he can't help but wish that they never, ever grow up.
*
As the weather cools, and Kurt really does start going to Seanna's belly dancing classes -- “There's a long history of male belly dancers, just so you know.” -- the cabal morphs into Sunday brunches, couples dinners, and a party to mark the impending end of the semester.
Blaine invites most of the people in his year without really thinking about it, which is how the existence of and reason for the cabal gets out.
Technically it's George's fault, because George is perpetually too loud and too drunk not to walk up to people and address them by various cabal epithets when he figures out who they are. It doesn't help that his fiance, who doesn't seem to drink at all, is too amused to stop him.
*
Kurt watches the whole thing spiral out of control in slow, delicate motion until Henry sidles up to him and says, “You realize this whole thing is going to come down on Blaine's head, yeah?”
It's the first time Henry has ever referred to Blaine by his first name, and Kurt nods. He hadn't realized it, not consciously, but it makes sense. And when it comes, not tonight, but soon, he knows it will be awful, in part because Blaine will be asked to control Kurt's behavior as if he's a woman or a dog.
*
Two days later the cookie recipe girl sends an email to the partner list that's worthy of Rachel Berry at her worst, if Rachel had ever really been about feeling persecuted instead of just at sea.
She suggests that Kurt has violated not only the rules of human decency (a point which Kurt is perhaps willing to concede even if she did totally deserve it) but the rules of grad school partner etiquette.
It's just all so stupid that Kurt can't help but blow up on the list about how no one has to like everyone, and how dare they think friendship is about making their lives look alike in the name of some bullshit their partners probably don't even care about or want.
Things devolve from there, someone actually uses the phrase drunken fornicators and Kurt can't even tell if it's ironic or not.
By the time Blaine gets home from a tutoring gig Kurt has wound up having to defend his honor and is slamming things around the kitchen in a fit of pique.
*
“What did I do?” Blaine asks, almost amused. Clearly, the car crash hasn't reached him yet.
Kurt sighs. “You didn't do anything other than be so insanely naïve as to invite your entire class to a party organized by drunk people who hate them. So I suck. George is awful. Seanna eats pussy. I don't even understand Henry, and everyone at school is going to hate you, and it's all my fault!”
Blaine takes a deep breath. It's times like this that it's very important for him not to tell Kurt that he's being irrational.
Instead he grabs his boyfriend's wrists tightly and holds them down at his sides until he stops moving.
“I'm not mad at you. No one is mad at me, yet. And you don't actually care if those people like you or not. So I love you, and it will be fine.”
Eventually Kurt whimpers, rests his head on Blaine's shoulder, and tries to believe him.
*
“Jesus christ, everyone I go to school with is like, two,” Blaine says slamming his laptop shut.
“Let me guess,” Kurt says dryly, from where he's sitting at the piano running through something he's considering for an audition song. “Your mailing list just exploded, and they do all hate you.”
“No,” Blaine says as he tries to do the math. “Probably only about 60%. One of them suggested I get better at controlling my wife.”
Kurt arches an eyebrow less at the fact that it happened and more at the fact that he predicted it.
Blaine smiles.
“Why are you smiling?” Kurt asks nervously.
“I suggested that perhaps he might want to spend less time being a bitch and more time being intimate with his wife so as to be less confused moving forward.”
Kurt's not sure whether he's amused or horrified at Blaine trying way too hard to defend his honor, but it is rather sweet in a hateful, hateful way.
“So what do you think happens next?”
Blaine shrugs. “Projects. Papers. Holidays. No one will even remember this in January.”
*
“Next year let's have Christmas here,” Kurt says as they throw their luggage into the car for the drive back to Lima.
The route's just enough longer than the one from Boston that they're not even going to try to do it one day. They'll do the eight hours to Pittsburgh, crash with Santana; and then she'll ride with them on to Ohio the next day.
Blaine freezes for a moment at Kurt's suggestion.
“It's not about Santana,” Kurt feels the need to clarify.
“Then --”
“I just think we're ready. To have our own Christmas. Everyone can come to us.”
“Really?”
Kurt chuckles. “You look like you've been waiting forever for me to ask.”
“Maybe I have.”
“Why?”
Blaine shrugs. “Don't know.”
“Well, let's tell everyone. This year. So they're prepared. For next year.”
“Okay,” Blaine says, trying to tamp down his excitement about what else this might mean in the secret languages of Kurt's brain.
“Your parents too.”
“I don't think --”
“Blaine. I can totally get your father to come to Christmas dinner at our home. In fact I'm sure of it.”
Blaine smiles, but it's weaker now. “Yeah. I know. I just wish I could.”
Kurt sighs as he realizes he's not thinking nearly enough before he speaks lately. “It has nothing to do with how much he loves you.”
Blaine rolls his eyes. “No, it has to do with how much of a man he thinks I am,” he says, the mere mention of the topic clearly enough to exhaust him.
Kurt stops himself from saying several nasty things, some of which target Blaine, some of which target Blaine's father, and some of which just target himself.
“Actually,” he manages, “it has to do with how good I am at manipulating him, which I can do, because I don't really give a shit.”
By the time they get on the road Kurt is sure things between them have become much too silent.
*
“You know,” Kurt says, once they're a good hour past Frederick, “this whole thing where you get really upset about people questioning your masculinity annoys the crap out of me.”
“Why? It happens to you all the time.”
“Wow.” Kurt is sincerely stunned. “I know I don't always think before I speak, but apparently you never do.”
“I didn't mean --”
Kurt sighs. “Yes, you did Blaine.”
“But --”
“Not a word,” he admonishes, taking a hand off the wheel to shove towards Blaine's face. “Actually, no. That's not true. I have questions.”
“Okay,” Blaine says nervously.
“One. Am I really supposed to be less offended by comments about my gender because it happens all the time? Seriously?”
“That wasn't what I meant.”
“Really?”
“You tell everyone your middle name is Elizabeth.”
“Yes, and I own like five skirts. Your point?”
“You can't be surprised when people make assumptions.”
“I don't have to be surprised to be offended.”
Blaine sighs.
“Are you going to sulk?” Kurt snaps.
“I am if you keep chasing this so hard I can't even formulate what I'm trying to say.”
Kurt grits his teeth and then lets out a long slow breath. “All right. That's fair. iPod?” Kurt says, snapping his fingers at Blaine.
It's a peace offering, letting him choose the music, but they're still not really talking by the time they hit Pittsburgh, something that isn't helped by the fact that their GPS seems to hate the city.
“I can't turn left,” Kurt shouts at the device. “There's a building!”
“I think it's thinks we're up there,” Blaine says, pointing to an overpass.
“I hate this.”
“We could --”
“We are not calling Santana to have her come rescue us.”
*
Eventually, they call Santana to have her come rescue them, and Kurt's honestly relieved, happy to be following along behind her and not having to think.
When they clamber out of their cars at her place, Kurt shoulders an overnight bag for him and Blaine and tries not to resent the way Blaine's shoulders relax around her they way they haven't once during the drive.
“Is my secret incestuous brother not fucking you enough?” Santana asks when she sees Kurt's face.
“Why did I agree to this?” Kurt sighs to the ceiling in her building's parking garage.
*
That night Kurt cooks them dinner just to have something to do other than pretend he's not furious and confused and worried about Blaine, so he's grateful when Blaine opens a bottle of wine they brought as a peace offering, and Santana suggests they mess with the karaoke program on her new video game machine.
Blaine winds up singing Dusty Springfield to him while climbing inappropriately on Santana's surprisingly nice modernist furniture. The song makes him swoon a little and he suspects there's some coded message in the song that Blaine will have to explain to him later after Santana's gone to bed.
“That was surprisingly hot,” Santana says.
Blaine thanks her, clearly deeply charmed by her approval.
“I think it made Hummel's panties wet.”
Kurt elbows her, hard, but then gives a breathy little sigh and says, “God, you have no idea.”
Santana shrieks with laughter then, and a moment later Blaine is the only one of them upright as she and Kurt have a tickle fight that also seems to involve biting in the middle of her living room floor.
“Stop, oh god, stop,” Kurt eventually gasps holding his sides. “I'm in pain I'm laughing so hard. Fuck.”
*
Later, when Santana's retreated to her bedroom and they're pulling out the sofa bed, Blaine says, “I figured it out.”
“What?”
“What I was trying to say in the car.”
“Can it wait until we get in bed?” Kurt asks, thinking the dark will give their clumsiness cover.
“Yeah.”
“Thanks.”
*
When he slides into bed next to Blaine, Kurt drapes himself half across him and slides a hand up under his t-shirt because Kurt needs to touch Blaine's skin to breathe.
“I think neither of us looks like what we are,” Blaine says without preamble. “Sometimes I'd rather have your bargain instead of mine. That's all I meant.”
“What do you mean?” Kurt asks. He knows exactly what Blaine means, but he wants to hear him say it anyway.
“You never really have to come out to people, do you?”
“No,” Kurt says, and there's bitterness there he can't hide.
“I do. All the time. I resent that. People tell me I shouldn't, you know. At school, when we talk about our career plans. That it'd be easier if I.... No one ever gives you advice like that, do they?”
“No one other than me,” Kurt admits. “Although not for a long time.” He stops himself from asking why any of this should even matter to Blaine's career plans.
“When that whole thing went down with the partner list and then my list --”
“Oh god. I am sorry about that, even if I think most of your classmates and nearly all of their spouses are imbeciles.”
“No, no, let me finish. When they do shit like call you my wife; I feel like I'm supposed to get angry on your behalf. But it makes me angry on my behalf. Because I'm not straight. And I'm not the man in this --”
“You're not the woman either,” Kurt says softly.
“I know, but --”
“You never saw yourself with someone like me did you?” Kurt asks. It's something he's known for a long time, but never something he's particularly wanted to hear Blaine say out loud.
“No,” Blaine admits. “Why did you think it took me so long to really see you?”
Kurt smiles into the dark. “Cruelty.”
*
The next day, they sing their way to Ohio, Santana and Blaine running their voices until they're hoarse, and Kurt opting sensibly out as often as he thinks they'll let him get away with.
It doesn't escape Santana's notice.
“You going to start auditioning soon?” she asks from the backseat, where she's got her feet up and is trying to do her nails.
“Yeah,” Kurt says softly. “Headshots first, and I should really enroll in some proper dance classes --”
“Are you taking improper ones?”
“Kurt's learning to bellydance,” Blaine says without thinking.
“I hate you,” Kurt mumbles.
“Oh my god,” Santana says, swinging her legs to the floor and sitting up properly. “Tell me there are sheer little harem pants and a veil involved.”
“You are so offensive,” Kurt says.
“You really are,” Blaine adds.
“I hate you less now,” Kurt says to him.
“Good.”
“Okay, why the fuck are you learning to bellydance?” Santana asks.
“Because a friend of mine teaches it, and I need to get more comfortable moving.”
“So it's like an all the shame at once sort of thing?” she asks.
“Yeah. Pretty much,” Kurt says with a shrug.
“That's kind of cool,” she says.
Kurt breathes a sigh of relief when she lets it drop and leans his head against the window as he closes his eyes for a moment. He's almost about to drift off when his whole body snaps to attention with realization.
“How many people did you just text about this?” Kurt asks, whipping around in his seat as best he can with his seatbelt on.
“Everyone I know,” she says, holding up her phone and waggling it at him.
“Fuuuuuuuuuck,” Kurt groans.
Blaine just chuckles.
*
“Are we good?” Blaine asks as they turn into Kurt's old neighborhood after they've dropped Santana off.
“Never weren't,” Kurt says.
For a moment Blaine looks away from the road to give Kurt a highly skeptical look.
“Yeah, we're good.” Kurt says after a beat.
“I'm glad.”
“Are you?”
“Never better,” Blaine says.
“Always better,” Kurt corrects with considerable haughtiness.
Blaine chuckles as he pulls the car to a stop in front of the house.
“Always,” Blaine echoes back at him as they climb out into the world of their recent and shared childhoods, but the meaning's changed, and Kurt smiles as he glimpses the man Blaine's one day going to be.
Next: When Sea Levels Rise
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