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rmTitle: Like You Should Be Kissed (1/3)
Rating: R
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine; Kurt/Blaine/Rachel
Spoilers (if any): "Blame it on the Alcohol", "New York"
Warnings (if any): None.
Word Count: ~2,000
Summary: Kurt comes to a startling conclusion. After that, everything is like dominoes.
Author's Note:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tsarina, who beta'd this for me, said it feels like a fever dream. It's entirely possible that it is. This has been haunting me for months, and while I'm trying to write it smart, I'm mostly just trying to get it out of my head.
In the mornings before they all have to start their days, Blaine knows that Rachel Berry likes to come into their bedroom and sit in the large chair by Kurt's side of the bed. Sometimes she wakes him and they talk quietly while Blaine nuzzles into Kurt's back. Sometimes she just sits there staring out the window.
It doesn't bother him, because it doesn't bother Kurt. Kurt and her are ridiculously close, although largely in the way of exiles; amongst their own kind, they might never choose to be friends. And so the nature of their friendship is something Blaine will never comment on, just as he will never bring up the oddity of Rachel's morning appearances. Kurt is physically at ease in the presence of very few people, and so no matter how weird the whole thing is, Blaine is essentially okay with it.
Not that he isn't a little puzzled. Because Blaine sleeps in the nude, and Kurt is so modest, and Rachel's always been something of a subject between them, that she's even allowed in their bedroom at all is something Blaine finds very weird. But it's also something of a relief; there are so many ways their two-against-one roommates thing could be so much more awkward.
*
It's winter, just after the new year, when Kurt goes quiet. He doesn't seem particularly distressed, so Blaine just leaves it alone. Sometimes Kurt does this, stops speaking more than is necessary while he turns something over in his brain until he figures it out. He did it for seventeen days before he told Blaine he was ready for them to have sex, six days before he decided what university to go to, and for four days before he suggested after their sophomore year that they move out of the dorms and get Rachel in on it too so that they could have their very own apartment, coming and going and coming as they please.
But when Kurt is still silent and lost somewhere in his exacting brain and labyrinthine heart a week later, Blaine knows that whatever this is, it's going to be big. And he's not scared. He excited. He always is by anything this worthy of Kurt's attention.
*
One morning, after Rachel pushes herself out of the chair and kisses the corner of Kurt's eye before going back to her room to dress for the day, Kurt twists in Blaine's arms so that they're facing and says, “I think I'm in love with Rachel Berry.”
Blaine knows that the only appropriate response is to steer Kurt towards being able to provide an explanation that might possibly make sense outside of his own head.
“You've always been close.”
Kurt shakes his head. “It's not like that.”
“What's it like?”
“It's not like I love my friends. It's like I love you.”
“Are you attracted to her?” Blaine asks, hoping his voice sounds neutral. Wouldn't that be rich, he can't help but think, if Kurt is.
“I don't know.”
“Okay,” Blaine says. Kurt is making this a little bit harder than usual.
“When she sits in the chair I think I would be happier if you and she were laying on either side of me. When I see her, I want to kiss her hello. When she smiles, I think 'how can I please her?' But I don't really want to have sex with her, although I do really, really want to kiss her.”
“So not like Mercedes?”
“No.”
“Or Finn?”
“That is just a historical hot mess that will not help this conversation at all.”
“Just checking.”
Kurt kisses him. “You don't seem bothered.”
Blaine shrugs. “It's interesting.”
“It's something I feel because of you.”
*
That's all either of them says about it for a week.
Then, one morning, after Rachel pads out of their room in her ugly slippers and Kurt sighs heavily, Blaine asks, “Does she know?”
“No.”
“Do you think you should tell her?”
“But I don't even know what I want,” Kurt whines.
Blaine smiles and kisses Kurt's neck, before translating him into the world again as he always does and always has. “You want to be able to love her.”
*
“You're too far away,” Kurt says the next morning as Rachel sits in her chair, analyzing her decision making skills about boys.
“You miss our sleepovers,” she teases him.
Kurt shakes his head. “I miss nothing about high school. Nothing.”
“I do. Sometimes.”
“Why?”
“All these problems seemed smaller.”
“Your problems haven't changed at all, Rachel,” Kurt says, annoyed at the way she just can't quite keep up sometimes.
“What do you mean?”
“You view everything as either/or. You sit here and whine at me about romance or career and all it means is that you've placed traditional notions of both in opposition to each other.”
“You sound like Blaine,” she says, and Blaine, still pretending to sleep, tightens his grip on Kurt's waist.
Kurt smiles but doesn't otherwise acknowledge him. “Seriously, you need to stop yo-yoing between two different types of bad choices and start figuring out what works for you. Now come here,” Kurt says and pats the bed beside him.
“Blaine won't mind?” she asks as she climbs up next to him, her hair brushing against his somewhat unusually bare shoulder.
“Blaine's never minded,” he says.
*
There's a part of Blaine that's incredibly uncomfortable with the way that Kurt is effectively seducing Rachel. The situation is so not straightforward that he's pretty sure open, honest communication is the only thing that would make it less sketchy. But Kurt is Kurt and Rachel is Rachel, and Blaine kissed her once a long time ago and so really can't say a damn thing about any of this until at least one of them knows what the hell it is.
Sixteen days later, in bed, in the morning, Kurt and Rachel finally kiss, and, from what Blaine can hear of it with his face pressed into Kurt's back, it's wet and dirty. It is also everything Blaine expects from both of them.
“If you just wanted to see what kissing a girl was like, all you had to do was ask,” he hears Rachel say nervously even though he knows she knows Kurt once made out with Brittany for like a week.
“I didn't,” Kurt says.
“Oh.”
“You just seemed like you should be kissed.”
“What would Blaine think?” she asks, and it's a little coy. Blaine is surprised at that. The Rachel of their high school years would have started lecturing about bisexuality or monogamy or something incredibly non-specific and impersonal instead.
“Blaine still doesn't mind,” he mumbles against Kurt's flesh.
Rachel sits up, shifting the blankets off all of them in a way that suddenly makes the whole situation much more obviously intimate and awkward.
“Was this your idea?” she asks Blaine.
Blaine leans up on his elbow to look at her. “No.”
*
“Wait, I don't understand,” she says pacing back and forth across their shared living room while Kurt and Blaine, now dressed, sit at what passes for their kitchen table. Whatever authority or maturity Rachel intends to project is lost to her pink and red heart pajamas and matching fuzzy slippers.
It occurs to Blaine that this, this is how he knows Kurt's not joking about this in part of the love thing. He'd actually turned to Blaine a moment ago and said Rachel was cute, despite what she's wearing.
“Look, Rachel. It's not like I understand either. It just is. I've spent weeks trying to figure it out and it's the only logical conclusion even if it – and I do realize this – doesn't actually make any sense.”
“How can you be in love with me and not want to sleep with me?”
“I'm still gay.”
“But --”
“Really.”
“Are you sure?” Blaine asks, faintly and perhaps inappropriately amused.
Kurt gives him a withering look.
“Okay. Kurt's gay,” he says, holding his hands up in surrender.
“All right,” Rachel says, finally standing still as she puts her hands on her hips. “How are are we going to do this?”
“Pardon?” Kurt splutters.
Blaine takes a sip of his coffee and looks between the two of them slyly. Rachel is difficult, yes, but, he has to admit, a remarkable advocate for herself.
“Can I kiss her?” Blaine asks Kurt.
“That's not very gentlemanly,” Rachel says.
Kurt nods because Rachel's right. “You should have asked her first.”
Blaine blushes. “Rachel, can I kiss you?”
“Much better,” she says with a smile. “But ask Kurt if it's okay.”
When Blaine turns to him, Kurt bites his lower lip and nods, so Blaine walks over to her and cards a hand back through her hair to tilt her face up to him.
“This is a little familiar,” she says.
“A bit,” Blaine says.
He kisses her then, and she's still a very, very good kisser, and it feels good and his dick is vaguely interested, but it's not like kissing Kurt, not like air and water and need.
“Kurt, come here a second,” Blaine says, beckoning him over when he breaks the kiss without really pulling away from Rachel.
“Blaine,” Kurt says when he arrives, amused at being so much more a bit taller than both of them now.
“Hi,” Rachel says to him simply because she has to say something.
Kurt gives her a little wave, and then settles his hand on the back of her neck. Blaine leans in to kiss her again, and Kurt leans against Blaine, mouthing at his neck.
Blaine gasps, and it's clear the whole of whatever he's feeling has just rolled down through his entirety of his body.
He lets Rachel go – her mouth is hanging open and she's trying to hide the fact that she's breathing hard – and steps back from both of them. First one step, then several more.
Kurt, eyes entirely on Blaine, reaches for Rachel's hand, and then smiles at his boyfriend.
“So how are we going to do this?” Kurt asks, echoing Rachel's question from earlier.
“I think,” Blaine says, trying to catch his breath. “I think we ask her out.”
Rachel smiles with approval. “I have rehearsal tonight, and a paper due on Thursday, and Friday nights I really just want to eat burritos and watch bad TV, alone, but --”
“Saturday?” Kurt asks, letting go of her hand and going to stand beside Blaine. He snakes a fond arm around his boyfriend's waist and then leans their heads together. “Would you let us take you out to dinner on Saturday?”
“All right,” Rachel says, a hint of caution shadowing her curiosity.
Rating: R
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine; Kurt/Blaine/Rachel
Spoilers (if any): "Blame it on the Alcohol", "New York"
Warnings (if any): None.
Word Count: ~2,000
Summary: Kurt comes to a startling conclusion. After that, everything is like dominoes.
Author's Note:
tsarina, who beta'd this for me, said it feels like a fever dream. It's entirely possible that it is. This has been haunting me for months, and while I'm trying to write it smart, I'm mostly just trying to get it out of my head.In the mornings before they all have to start their days, Blaine knows that Rachel Berry likes to come into their bedroom and sit in the large chair by Kurt's side of the bed. Sometimes she wakes him and they talk quietly while Blaine nuzzles into Kurt's back. Sometimes she just sits there staring out the window.
It doesn't bother him, because it doesn't bother Kurt. Kurt and her are ridiculously close, although largely in the way of exiles; amongst their own kind, they might never choose to be friends. And so the nature of their friendship is something Blaine will never comment on, just as he will never bring up the oddity of Rachel's morning appearances. Kurt is physically at ease in the presence of very few people, and so no matter how weird the whole thing is, Blaine is essentially okay with it.
Not that he isn't a little puzzled. Because Blaine sleeps in the nude, and Kurt is so modest, and Rachel's always been something of a subject between them, that she's even allowed in their bedroom at all is something Blaine finds very weird. But it's also something of a relief; there are so many ways their two-against-one roommates thing could be so much more awkward.
*
It's winter, just after the new year, when Kurt goes quiet. He doesn't seem particularly distressed, so Blaine just leaves it alone. Sometimes Kurt does this, stops speaking more than is necessary while he turns something over in his brain until he figures it out. He did it for seventeen days before he told Blaine he was ready for them to have sex, six days before he decided what university to go to, and for four days before he suggested after their sophomore year that they move out of the dorms and get Rachel in on it too so that they could have their very own apartment, coming and going and coming as they please.
But when Kurt is still silent and lost somewhere in his exacting brain and labyrinthine heart a week later, Blaine knows that whatever this is, it's going to be big. And he's not scared. He excited. He always is by anything this worthy of Kurt's attention.
*
One morning, after Rachel pushes herself out of the chair and kisses the corner of Kurt's eye before going back to her room to dress for the day, Kurt twists in Blaine's arms so that they're facing and says, “I think I'm in love with Rachel Berry.”
Blaine knows that the only appropriate response is to steer Kurt towards being able to provide an explanation that might possibly make sense outside of his own head.
“You've always been close.”
Kurt shakes his head. “It's not like that.”
“What's it like?”
“It's not like I love my friends. It's like I love you.”
“Are you attracted to her?” Blaine asks, hoping his voice sounds neutral. Wouldn't that be rich, he can't help but think, if Kurt is.
“I don't know.”
“Okay,” Blaine says. Kurt is making this a little bit harder than usual.
“When she sits in the chair I think I would be happier if you and she were laying on either side of me. When I see her, I want to kiss her hello. When she smiles, I think 'how can I please her?' But I don't really want to have sex with her, although I do really, really want to kiss her.”
“So not like Mercedes?”
“No.”
“Or Finn?”
“That is just a historical hot mess that will not help this conversation at all.”
“Just checking.”
Kurt kisses him. “You don't seem bothered.”
Blaine shrugs. “It's interesting.”
“It's something I feel because of you.”
*
That's all either of them says about it for a week.
Then, one morning, after Rachel pads out of their room in her ugly slippers and Kurt sighs heavily, Blaine asks, “Does she know?”
“No.”
“Do you think you should tell her?”
“But I don't even know what I want,” Kurt whines.
Blaine smiles and kisses Kurt's neck, before translating him into the world again as he always does and always has. “You want to be able to love her.”
*
“You're too far away,” Kurt says the next morning as Rachel sits in her chair, analyzing her decision making skills about boys.
“You miss our sleepovers,” she teases him.
Kurt shakes his head. “I miss nothing about high school. Nothing.”
“I do. Sometimes.”
“Why?”
“All these problems seemed smaller.”
“Your problems haven't changed at all, Rachel,” Kurt says, annoyed at the way she just can't quite keep up sometimes.
“What do you mean?”
“You view everything as either/or. You sit here and whine at me about romance or career and all it means is that you've placed traditional notions of both in opposition to each other.”
“You sound like Blaine,” she says, and Blaine, still pretending to sleep, tightens his grip on Kurt's waist.
Kurt smiles but doesn't otherwise acknowledge him. “Seriously, you need to stop yo-yoing between two different types of bad choices and start figuring out what works for you. Now come here,” Kurt says and pats the bed beside him.
“Blaine won't mind?” she asks as she climbs up next to him, her hair brushing against his somewhat unusually bare shoulder.
“Blaine's never minded,” he says.
*
There's a part of Blaine that's incredibly uncomfortable with the way that Kurt is effectively seducing Rachel. The situation is so not straightforward that he's pretty sure open, honest communication is the only thing that would make it less sketchy. But Kurt is Kurt and Rachel is Rachel, and Blaine kissed her once a long time ago and so really can't say a damn thing about any of this until at least one of them knows what the hell it is.
Sixteen days later, in bed, in the morning, Kurt and Rachel finally kiss, and, from what Blaine can hear of it with his face pressed into Kurt's back, it's wet and dirty. It is also everything Blaine expects from both of them.
“If you just wanted to see what kissing a girl was like, all you had to do was ask,” he hears Rachel say nervously even though he knows she knows Kurt once made out with Brittany for like a week.
“I didn't,” Kurt says.
“Oh.”
“You just seemed like you should be kissed.”
“What would Blaine think?” she asks, and it's a little coy. Blaine is surprised at that. The Rachel of their high school years would have started lecturing about bisexuality or monogamy or something incredibly non-specific and impersonal instead.
“Blaine still doesn't mind,” he mumbles against Kurt's flesh.
Rachel sits up, shifting the blankets off all of them in a way that suddenly makes the whole situation much more obviously intimate and awkward.
“Was this your idea?” she asks Blaine.
Blaine leans up on his elbow to look at her. “No.”
*
“Wait, I don't understand,” she says pacing back and forth across their shared living room while Kurt and Blaine, now dressed, sit at what passes for their kitchen table. Whatever authority or maturity Rachel intends to project is lost to her pink and red heart pajamas and matching fuzzy slippers.
It occurs to Blaine that this, this is how he knows Kurt's not joking about this in part of the love thing. He'd actually turned to Blaine a moment ago and said Rachel was cute, despite what she's wearing.
“Look, Rachel. It's not like I understand either. It just is. I've spent weeks trying to figure it out and it's the only logical conclusion even if it – and I do realize this – doesn't actually make any sense.”
“How can you be in love with me and not want to sleep with me?”
“I'm still gay.”
“But --”
“Really.”
“Are you sure?” Blaine asks, faintly and perhaps inappropriately amused.
Kurt gives him a withering look.
“Okay. Kurt's gay,” he says, holding his hands up in surrender.
“All right,” Rachel says, finally standing still as she puts her hands on her hips. “How are are we going to do this?”
“Pardon?” Kurt splutters.
Blaine takes a sip of his coffee and looks between the two of them slyly. Rachel is difficult, yes, but, he has to admit, a remarkable advocate for herself.
“Can I kiss her?” Blaine asks Kurt.
“That's not very gentlemanly,” Rachel says.
Kurt nods because Rachel's right. “You should have asked her first.”
Blaine blushes. “Rachel, can I kiss you?”
“Much better,” she says with a smile. “But ask Kurt if it's okay.”
When Blaine turns to him, Kurt bites his lower lip and nods, so Blaine walks over to her and cards a hand back through her hair to tilt her face up to him.
“This is a little familiar,” she says.
“A bit,” Blaine says.
He kisses her then, and she's still a very, very good kisser, and it feels good and his dick is vaguely interested, but it's not like kissing Kurt, not like air and water and need.
“Kurt, come here a second,” Blaine says, beckoning him over when he breaks the kiss without really pulling away from Rachel.
“Blaine,” Kurt says when he arrives, amused at being so much more a bit taller than both of them now.
“Hi,” Rachel says to him simply because she has to say something.
Kurt gives her a little wave, and then settles his hand on the back of her neck. Blaine leans in to kiss her again, and Kurt leans against Blaine, mouthing at his neck.
Blaine gasps, and it's clear the whole of whatever he's feeling has just rolled down through his entirety of his body.
He lets Rachel go – her mouth is hanging open and she's trying to hide the fact that she's breathing hard – and steps back from both of them. First one step, then several more.
Kurt, eyes entirely on Blaine, reaches for Rachel's hand, and then smiles at his boyfriend.
“So how are we going to do this?” Kurt asks, echoing Rachel's question from earlier.
“I think,” Blaine says, trying to catch his breath. “I think we ask her out.”
Rachel smiles with approval. “I have rehearsal tonight, and a paper due on Thursday, and Friday nights I really just want to eat burritos and watch bad TV, alone, but --”
“Saturday?” Kurt asks, letting go of her hand and going to stand beside Blaine. He snakes a fond arm around his boyfriend's waist and then leans their heads together. “Would you let us take you out to dinner on Saturday?”
“All right,” Rachel says, a hint of caution shadowing her curiosity.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-07-07 05:13 am (UTC)And yet, I keep reading.
I must like your themes, or something.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-07 10:20 am (UTC)I actually have an inordinate amount of affection/discomfort for the character Rachel is supposed to be. What happens in canon, sometimes yes, sometimes no. I see a lot of high school myself in her at her worst moments, so I've got a lot of compassion there.