![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmTitle: More Honored Than the Other Animals
Rating: R
Pairings/Characters: Kurt/Blaine
Word Count: ~3,150
Summary: Waiting not quite as long as previously intended.
The series so far:
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 | The Many Shades of Sugar | When Sea Levels Rise | The History of Sand | Tales of Minor Gods | A Little Bit Ruined | The Numbers Held by Ghosts | Weights and Measures | Anamnesis | Hello, I Must Be Going | And I Have Heard You Speaking
“I think I'm going a little crazy,” Blaine says, picking at the label on his beer bottle.
“Who's surprised?” Kate asks. They're sitting hunched over a tiny table at the back of the bar and mostly ignoring the singer.
“Me, I guess,” Blaine says.
“Seriously?” Kate asks, making a face.
“You got that eyebrow thing from Kurt.”
She smirks at him. “Whatever works.”
“I'm not gonna think about that too hard.”
“For which you have my thanks.”
“I went to Shanghai once, when we were in college,” he says, ignoring her banter. “It... a lot of stuff happened.”
“Study abroad?” she asks, just to offer punctuation.
Blaine nods. “But I had no idea why any of it was happening. It made Kurt so angry.”
“Can I ask you something?” Kate says, leaning back abruptly and taking a long pull on her beer.
Blaine shrugs at her to go ahead.
“What's wrong with you?”
Blaine barks with laughter.
“No, no, no, I don't mean in a rhetorical way. I mean, you're very mellow for a guy who's an open wound, but what is up with you?”
“How long have you wanted to ask that?” he asks, still faintly entertained.
“Since we met,” she says, reaching up to tuck a slightly stray curl behind his ear.
*
Kurt asks Blaine not to come to his opening in Schenectady, and Blaine obeys because, despite everything, he understands; eventually, Kurt will have a proper opening on Broadway and no one wants to mistake this for that.
But Blaine does have flowers sent to the theater and smiles when Kurt calls him full of breathless thanks from the chaos after the show.
Their apartment is dark as he takes the call, and Blaine has been sitting up straight on their couch, eyes closed and listening since five minutes before curtain.
*
When they all get back to the hotel that night, Kurt clutching his bouquet, he regrets just a little having asked Blaine to stay away.
He's having the extra taken out of his pay to have a room to himself, and watching two of the dancers-who-sing kiss in the lobby as Jay, surrounded by half the cast, beckons to him with his chin since he has six-pack in each hand, is just hard.
But Kurt just shakes his head, unable to face the festivities. It's not that he needs to do this without Blaine; it's that he needs to do it alone.
*
The next afternoon, Jay grabs his arm in the drugstore by the hotel as Kurt stocks up on Vitamin Water for his room.
“Friendly advice?” he offers, and Kurt tips his head at him in acknowledgement. “Don't give anyone a reason to think you think you're better than them.”
“That's not --”
“Nope. Don't say it. Not true.”
“I'm --”
“You're not here by the skin of your teeth, Kurt. And I know this,” he adds, grabbing Kurt by the ring on his finger, “is complicated. But when we celebrate, we all to celebrate. One drink. Fifteen minutes. Your life will be easier; trust me.”
Kurt nods, wide-eyed, a little scared, and desperately relieved when the other man finally lets go of him.
“Jesus, why are they always out of the pink one?” Jay asks then, looking askance at the refrigerated case.
*
After six days in Schenectady, with Kurt falling asleep each night to Blaine's rumbling affection over the phone, the tour flies on to Raleigh, changing planes at Dulles.
“This is the worst thing,” Kurt says into his mobile. It's 7am and they are all exhausted and surrounded by businessmen, while Blaine is bleary and at home in their bed.
“I thought about buying the cheapest random ticket I could find, just to get through security to see you,” he says.
Kurt smiles and huffs out a little breath. “Stupid,” he says.
“Yes.”
“Are you doing all right?” he asks, not for the first time.
“I just wish the girl at the dry-cleaners would stop giving me the pity look.”
“Why is she giving you the pity look?”
“I think she thinks we broke up.”
*
Blaine flies down to Raleigh on Friday night, meeting Kurt outside the theater after the show. He stands by the stage door dopily clutching another bouqet of flowers and wearing a hopeful grin.
“You besotted fool,” Kurt laughs as he launches himself into Blaine's arms.
Blaine kisses him hard, and it's sloppy enough to feel like high school.
*
“No. Bed,” Kurt says, trying to be playful and pushing Blaine away from trying to maul him against the hotel room door. “I need a shower --”
“I can help with that,” Blaine volunteers.
“I'm sure you can, but I'm disgusting and I need to... I need to let it go a little,” he says, quieting.
Blaine nods. “Sorry, I --”
“You're excited,” Kurt says, pulling off his shirt. “I'm excited. But... new thing. I need you to help me figure it out, okay?”
Blaine nods, open-mouthed as Kurt strips, casual and exhausted.
*
Blaine propped up in bed reading is more or less what Kurt expects when he gets out of the shower. Blaine propped up in bed reading and naked, not so much.
“This is tragic,” Kurt says as he towels his hair.
“What is?” Blaine asks in a tone that makes Kurt realize that anything he says is going to be interpreted by his horny, lonely boyfriend as flirting right now.
“I haven't eaten dinner yet, and you're...,” he doesn't say it, just gestures instead.
“Tell me there's room service.”
Kurt shakes his head, and then watches as Blaine tries to figure out if he should laugh or apologize.
“Oh, don't,” he says, sitting beside him on the edge of the bed, still wrapped in a towel. “I missed you, and I can eat later.”
“Thank you,” Blaine breathes.
“Shhhhhhhhhh.”
*
Waking up with Blaine again is worth having skipped dinner for, but if he doesn't eat something not from a vending machine soon – Kurt can't believe what this tour has reduced him to already – he's not going to survive.
So he shoves at Blaine, who startles incoherently.
“Up,” Kurt says, steering them out of bed. “You're taking me to breakfast before I'm trapped in the theater all day.”
Blaine blinks. “God, I'm not going to see you all day,” Blaine says, because he's still too asleep to stop himself.
“Yes you will,” Kurt says good-naturedly. “You'll just be out there.” He points to the other side of the room, and Blaine wonders if this is the home Kurt always carries around with him, a sense that he always is, and has always been, on stage.
*
They find an hour and change to spend together between the matinee and evening performances, and Kurt is more precise than Blaine feels perhaps ready for.
“I hate that it feels like you're just visiting,” Kurt says as he picks at a salad and tries not to comment on the fairly revolting spectacle of Blaine dipping french fries into his vanilla milkshake.
“Well, I am just visiting.”
“Raleigh,” Kurt says. “You shouldn't be just visiting me.”
Blaine tilts his head.
“I shouldn't be doing this before a show,” Kurt says, his voice tight with frustration and fear.
“Doing what?” Blaine asks, feeling cold and flushed all at once.
Somehow it must show on his face.
“No, no, no, hey,” Kurt says, sliding out of his side of the booth to scoot in next to Blaine and gather him up in his arms. “Nothing like that. Nothing like that.”
Blaine feels himself take a breath and shudder back into existence. It's weird, and it's scary, and he's not sure what's just happened, to him or to them.
Kurt pulls back just enough to really look into his eyes. “I am not used to dating you. I am not used to not sharing a home with you. We've never done this by choice before, and I don't know how, and sometimes I hate it. I may hate this entire year. And when you're not here, I don't have to think about it and when you are.... it's hard.”
“I don't have to come visit, if that's not what you want,” Blaine says quietly out of some reflexive generosity.
“You idiot,” Kurt says, curling up small against him. “It's what I want. The problem is I want more.”
*
Even as part of a chorus, Blaine can tell when Kurt is performing pain.
*
After the show, Blaine wraps Kurt up in his arms when he comes out of the theater. He doesn't say anything, and when Jay, the man playing Kurt's role most nights – because yes, that is how Blaine thinks of it – catches his eye over the top of Kurt's bent head, Blaine reads it as a challenge.
They don't socialize with any of the cast that night, going back to the room instead, with Kurt pulling at Blaine's hands and arms until he finally figures out that what his boyfriend needs is anything but gentle.
*
“Someone should write a book about how to do this,” Kurt says after, lying on his back next to Blaine, their hands entertwined.
Blaine snorts. “We'll figure it out, you know.”
“Why are you so okay, and I'm so not?”
“Not normally how it works, is it?” he asks.
Kurt shakes his head against the pillows.
“I'm thinking of going to Ohio next weekend,” Blaine says, seemingly at random.
Kurt hums curiously.
“I... I feel like if I can do that I should be here, instead but....”
“You're allowed to have other things going on, Blaine. Although that one boggles just a bit,” he says, his voice going from desperate to amused.
“Don't worry,” he says. “I know.”
*
Kurt goes with Blaine to the airport before dawn on Monday morning and presses a hundred kisses to his face in front of the security line as he says two weeks, I love you and you are perfect, and then, as Blaine finally has to turn to go, don't be scared.
*
But Blaine is damn scared as he locks their front door, throws his duffle in the back of their car, and slides into the driver's seat to begin the trek to Ohio just a few days later.
It's stupid, he knows, to drive for such a short duration trip, but he feels like he needs the nowhere of the road to pull himself together, and it's true, because by the time he enters Pennsylvania his hands have at least stopped shaking.
He turns up the volume on his ipod and sings along, pressing against the top of his range more often than he should because of the way it reminds him of trying to keep up with Kurt back when they'd first met.
*
When he swings the car around into the gravel of his parents' driveway, Blaine's hands start trembling again, because he hasn't slept a night in their house since he was eighteen.
He's more grateful than he'd like to be welcomed back. And he can't help but wonder if that's because he's taken this trip necessarily alone, but even his father smiles when he hugs his mother, his bag still slung on his back.
“How's Kurt?” his father asks, and while Blaine can hear how it's awkward in his mouth, he can also hear how his father's proud that he has someone. It's both galling and lovely.
“I....” He stammers, because he had really inteded to have a shower and some sleep and some preparation before doing this, but an opening is an opening. “That's why I'm here, actually,” he says, straightening up.
“Is everything okay?” his mother asks.
“It's fine, isn't it?” his father says, and Blaine laughs, because he can't believe his father knows.
“I'm going to ask him to marry me,” Blaine says simply. “And I wanted you to know first.”
“Having lunch in Lima tomorrow?” his father says, a bit stern now, a bit terse.
“That's the plan.”
He knows Kurt would prefer that he waits. But right now, he almost doesn't care.
*
The weird thing is, despite it being late, once he says it, no one wants to go to bed.
His mother makes cocoa and spikes it with Baileys for all of them, even as it's not remotely far enough into the year. She pulls out photo albums, filled with pictures that make his father laugh at her, but not unkindly.
It occurs to Blaine, for the first time, not only that his parents were once in love, but that they still are, and it shakes him a little bit, because suddenly he understands just why they've never quite had room for him in their hearts.
*
In the morning, he makes coffee in their kitchen, the muscle memory of where everything is still present even after six years of exile.
His father clears his throat behind him, and Blaine doesn't tense, but sighs.
“Can we talk?” his father asks.
“Would you mind if I got dressed first?” Whatever confrontation is coming, Blaine would rather look neat and sharp and ready to leave than be in sweats and a rumpled t-shirt as his father treats him as a child for whom and how he loves.
But his father says, “You don't need to,” his voice too kind, and Blaine turns to find him sitting down at their kitchen table, hands clasped in front of him.
“Did you want some coffee?” Blaine asks to stall.
*
The spoon is too loud in his own mug as he stirs, but his father started this and so now he knows all he can do to maintain any hand in this is to wait out the silence.
“I don't know if you have a plan, with Kurt --”
“I --”
His father holds up his hand. “Let me finish,” he says. “I don't know if you've got a ring picked out or if that one he's already got suffices or how any of this works. But I want you to have this, for him, if you want it,” his father says, and shoves a small box across the table to him.
Blaine is so stunned he fumbles the spoon out of his coffee and watches as the milky brown of it splatters the wax-coated yellow-checked tablecloth. He stares at the colors of it, and thinks of Kurt and their current apartment and falls in love all over again.
“It was my grandmother's. She wore it all the time. It's not traditional, I know; I always thought I'd be giving you other things for some bride I imagined. But I think Kurt – I'm fond of him in a way I can't stand, Blaine – would appreciate this more.”
Blaine opens the box, to find a small brooch, a honeybee, made of gold and diamonds.
*
When he's composed enough to go, Blaine hugs his father goodbye at the door, and calls out to his mother at the kitchen that he'll be home in time for dinner.
He gets into his car, flips on the radio, and heads out to Hummel Tire & Lube. He wants to call someone to distract him on the way there. He is so goddamn elated, but he also knows this is one of those moments he has to have alone.
*
“Someone's giddy,” Burt says with intense amusement as Blaine shakes his hand more firmly than he ever has before, and Blaine has always had a good, solid handshake.
“I stayed with my parents last night.”
Burt raises both eyebrows. “And that wasn't a disaster?”
Blaine shakes his head.
“So what're you doing out here, instead of following my kid around on the road.”
“You know he'd kill me if I did that.”
“I do,” Burt says. “I also know you.”
Blaine laughs at that. “He's really good. I mean, I know you know but, I saw it last weekend, just his ensemble role. He's really good.”
“We can't wait,” Burt says, but it's just small talk. “So cut to the chase here, before I have to start doing it for you.”
Blaine rubs his sweaty hands nervously over thighs. “I know we've already talked about this. About how it's weird and Kurt wouldn't approve and all that, but I'm going to ask him to marry me. Soon. And I'd like your blessing.”
Burt narrows his eyes a bit. “Ask soon or marry soon?”
“Ask soon.”
“Okay. Well, that's better. I thought you two agreed it would wait until after you graduated.”
“We did, and then --”
“And then the tour happened.”
“Yeah,” Blaine admits.
“And now you're both going a little crazy.”
Blaine nods.
“He give you permission to do this sooner? He know this is coming?”
“Yeah. I want to wait, as long as I can, but I don't think --”
“No. No, that's right,” Burt says, thinking about it, and sighing. “He may have wanted you to wait, but now he'll wonder what's wrong with him if you do.”
“So....” Blaine says, hopeful and still wanting Burt to formally give them his blessing.
“What'd you get him?”
Blaine fumbles the box out of his pocket and hands it to Burt. “It was my great-grandmother's,” he says.
Burt whistles low when he opens it. “You done good. And you've always had my blessing, Blaine. Both of you,” he says, clapping him on the back.
“Oh, thank god.” Blaine nearly crumples in nervous relief as he lets out a long breath. “Can I sit down for a minute?”
Burt laughs and steers him towards an old battered couch. “Don't pass out on me, 'cause there's no way I'd be letting you live that down.”
*
When he gets back in his car Sunday afternoon to head back to DC, Blaine knows the hardest part is over, although it doesn't really feel that way.
He still has to tell Wes, and he doesn't know how to make that not weird, eventhough it's not weird. And he should tell Kate and Henry too....
Suddenly, Blaine feels like he needs everyone's permission, and imagines asking them all – Alex and Rachel, Santana and Mercedes, Tina and her deep reason, Brittany and all her secret knowledge; William Schuester and his ignorance, and Sue Sylvester and her years of constant certainty in Kurt's ferocity.
If Blaine thought any of them could keep a secret, he knows, suddenly, that he would ask them all.
He wonders if this is why Kurt had insisted that this wasn't even on the table until national legalization; there have always been so many claims on them.
So Blaine jabs at his iPhone up on the dash. He has a lot of calls to make, and really, there's no time like the present.
Rating: R
Pairings/Characters: Kurt/Blaine
Word Count: ~3,150
Summary: Waiting not quite as long as previously intended.
The series so far:
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 | The Many Shades of Sugar | When Sea Levels Rise | The History of Sand | Tales of Minor Gods | A Little Bit Ruined | The Numbers Held by Ghosts | Weights and Measures | Anamnesis | Hello, I Must Be Going | And I Have Heard You Speaking
“I think I'm going a little crazy,” Blaine says, picking at the label on his beer bottle.
“Who's surprised?” Kate asks. They're sitting hunched over a tiny table at the back of the bar and mostly ignoring the singer.
“Me, I guess,” Blaine says.
“Seriously?” Kate asks, making a face.
“You got that eyebrow thing from Kurt.”
She smirks at him. “Whatever works.”
“I'm not gonna think about that too hard.”
“For which you have my thanks.”
“I went to Shanghai once, when we were in college,” he says, ignoring her banter. “It... a lot of stuff happened.”
“Study abroad?” she asks, just to offer punctuation.
Blaine nods. “But I had no idea why any of it was happening. It made Kurt so angry.”
“Can I ask you something?” Kate says, leaning back abruptly and taking a long pull on her beer.
Blaine shrugs at her to go ahead.
“What's wrong with you?”
Blaine barks with laughter.
“No, no, no, I don't mean in a rhetorical way. I mean, you're very mellow for a guy who's an open wound, but what is up with you?”
“How long have you wanted to ask that?” he asks, still faintly entertained.
“Since we met,” she says, reaching up to tuck a slightly stray curl behind his ear.
*
Kurt asks Blaine not to come to his opening in Schenectady, and Blaine obeys because, despite everything, he understands; eventually, Kurt will have a proper opening on Broadway and no one wants to mistake this for that.
But Blaine does have flowers sent to the theater and smiles when Kurt calls him full of breathless thanks from the chaos after the show.
Their apartment is dark as he takes the call, and Blaine has been sitting up straight on their couch, eyes closed and listening since five minutes before curtain.
*
When they all get back to the hotel that night, Kurt clutching his bouquet, he regrets just a little having asked Blaine to stay away.
He's having the extra taken out of his pay to have a room to himself, and watching two of the dancers-who-sing kiss in the lobby as Jay, surrounded by half the cast, beckons to him with his chin since he has six-pack in each hand, is just hard.
But Kurt just shakes his head, unable to face the festivities. It's not that he needs to do this without Blaine; it's that he needs to do it alone.
*
The next afternoon, Jay grabs his arm in the drugstore by the hotel as Kurt stocks up on Vitamin Water for his room.
“Friendly advice?” he offers, and Kurt tips his head at him in acknowledgement. “Don't give anyone a reason to think you think you're better than them.”
“That's not --”
“Nope. Don't say it. Not true.”
“I'm --”
“You're not here by the skin of your teeth, Kurt. And I know this,” he adds, grabbing Kurt by the ring on his finger, “is complicated. But when we celebrate, we all to celebrate. One drink. Fifteen minutes. Your life will be easier; trust me.”
Kurt nods, wide-eyed, a little scared, and desperately relieved when the other man finally lets go of him.
“Jesus, why are they always out of the pink one?” Jay asks then, looking askance at the refrigerated case.
*
After six days in Schenectady, with Kurt falling asleep each night to Blaine's rumbling affection over the phone, the tour flies on to Raleigh, changing planes at Dulles.
“This is the worst thing,” Kurt says into his mobile. It's 7am and they are all exhausted and surrounded by businessmen, while Blaine is bleary and at home in their bed.
“I thought about buying the cheapest random ticket I could find, just to get through security to see you,” he says.
Kurt smiles and huffs out a little breath. “Stupid,” he says.
“Yes.”
“Are you doing all right?” he asks, not for the first time.
“I just wish the girl at the dry-cleaners would stop giving me the pity look.”
“Why is she giving you the pity look?”
“I think she thinks we broke up.”
*
Blaine flies down to Raleigh on Friday night, meeting Kurt outside the theater after the show. He stands by the stage door dopily clutching another bouqet of flowers and wearing a hopeful grin.
“You besotted fool,” Kurt laughs as he launches himself into Blaine's arms.
Blaine kisses him hard, and it's sloppy enough to feel like high school.
*
“No. Bed,” Kurt says, trying to be playful and pushing Blaine away from trying to maul him against the hotel room door. “I need a shower --”
“I can help with that,” Blaine volunteers.
“I'm sure you can, but I'm disgusting and I need to... I need to let it go a little,” he says, quieting.
Blaine nods. “Sorry, I --”
“You're excited,” Kurt says, pulling off his shirt. “I'm excited. But... new thing. I need you to help me figure it out, okay?”
Blaine nods, open-mouthed as Kurt strips, casual and exhausted.
*
Blaine propped up in bed reading is more or less what Kurt expects when he gets out of the shower. Blaine propped up in bed reading and naked, not so much.
“This is tragic,” Kurt says as he towels his hair.
“What is?” Blaine asks in a tone that makes Kurt realize that anything he says is going to be interpreted by his horny, lonely boyfriend as flirting right now.
“I haven't eaten dinner yet, and you're...,” he doesn't say it, just gestures instead.
“Tell me there's room service.”
Kurt shakes his head, and then watches as Blaine tries to figure out if he should laugh or apologize.
“Oh, don't,” he says, sitting beside him on the edge of the bed, still wrapped in a towel. “I missed you, and I can eat later.”
“Thank you,” Blaine breathes.
“Shhhhhhhhhh.”
*
Waking up with Blaine again is worth having skipped dinner for, but if he doesn't eat something not from a vending machine soon – Kurt can't believe what this tour has reduced him to already – he's not going to survive.
So he shoves at Blaine, who startles incoherently.
“Up,” Kurt says, steering them out of bed. “You're taking me to breakfast before I'm trapped in the theater all day.”
Blaine blinks. “God, I'm not going to see you all day,” Blaine says, because he's still too asleep to stop himself.
“Yes you will,” Kurt says good-naturedly. “You'll just be out there.” He points to the other side of the room, and Blaine wonders if this is the home Kurt always carries around with him, a sense that he always is, and has always been, on stage.
*
They find an hour and change to spend together between the matinee and evening performances, and Kurt is more precise than Blaine feels perhaps ready for.
“I hate that it feels like you're just visiting,” Kurt says as he picks at a salad and tries not to comment on the fairly revolting spectacle of Blaine dipping french fries into his vanilla milkshake.
“Well, I am just visiting.”
“Raleigh,” Kurt says. “You shouldn't be just visiting me.”
Blaine tilts his head.
“I shouldn't be doing this before a show,” Kurt says, his voice tight with frustration and fear.
“Doing what?” Blaine asks, feeling cold and flushed all at once.
Somehow it must show on his face.
“No, no, no, hey,” Kurt says, sliding out of his side of the booth to scoot in next to Blaine and gather him up in his arms. “Nothing like that. Nothing like that.”
Blaine feels himself take a breath and shudder back into existence. It's weird, and it's scary, and he's not sure what's just happened, to him or to them.
Kurt pulls back just enough to really look into his eyes. “I am not used to dating you. I am not used to not sharing a home with you. We've never done this by choice before, and I don't know how, and sometimes I hate it. I may hate this entire year. And when you're not here, I don't have to think about it and when you are.... it's hard.”
“I don't have to come visit, if that's not what you want,” Blaine says quietly out of some reflexive generosity.
“You idiot,” Kurt says, curling up small against him. “It's what I want. The problem is I want more.”
*
Even as part of a chorus, Blaine can tell when Kurt is performing pain.
*
After the show, Blaine wraps Kurt up in his arms when he comes out of the theater. He doesn't say anything, and when Jay, the man playing Kurt's role most nights – because yes, that is how Blaine thinks of it – catches his eye over the top of Kurt's bent head, Blaine reads it as a challenge.
They don't socialize with any of the cast that night, going back to the room instead, with Kurt pulling at Blaine's hands and arms until he finally figures out that what his boyfriend needs is anything but gentle.
*
“Someone should write a book about how to do this,” Kurt says after, lying on his back next to Blaine, their hands entertwined.
Blaine snorts. “We'll figure it out, you know.”
“Why are you so okay, and I'm so not?”
“Not normally how it works, is it?” he asks.
Kurt shakes his head against the pillows.
“I'm thinking of going to Ohio next weekend,” Blaine says, seemingly at random.
Kurt hums curiously.
“I... I feel like if I can do that I should be here, instead but....”
“You're allowed to have other things going on, Blaine. Although that one boggles just a bit,” he says, his voice going from desperate to amused.
“Don't worry,” he says. “I know.”
*
Kurt goes with Blaine to the airport before dawn on Monday morning and presses a hundred kisses to his face in front of the security line as he says two weeks, I love you and you are perfect, and then, as Blaine finally has to turn to go, don't be scared.
*
But Blaine is damn scared as he locks their front door, throws his duffle in the back of their car, and slides into the driver's seat to begin the trek to Ohio just a few days later.
It's stupid, he knows, to drive for such a short duration trip, but he feels like he needs the nowhere of the road to pull himself together, and it's true, because by the time he enters Pennsylvania his hands have at least stopped shaking.
He turns up the volume on his ipod and sings along, pressing against the top of his range more often than he should because of the way it reminds him of trying to keep up with Kurt back when they'd first met.
*
When he swings the car around into the gravel of his parents' driveway, Blaine's hands start trembling again, because he hasn't slept a night in their house since he was eighteen.
He's more grateful than he'd like to be welcomed back. And he can't help but wonder if that's because he's taken this trip necessarily alone, but even his father smiles when he hugs his mother, his bag still slung on his back.
“How's Kurt?” his father asks, and while Blaine can hear how it's awkward in his mouth, he can also hear how his father's proud that he has someone. It's both galling and lovely.
“I....” He stammers, because he had really inteded to have a shower and some sleep and some preparation before doing this, but an opening is an opening. “That's why I'm here, actually,” he says, straightening up.
“Is everything okay?” his mother asks.
“It's fine, isn't it?” his father says, and Blaine laughs, because he can't believe his father knows.
“I'm going to ask him to marry me,” Blaine says simply. “And I wanted you to know first.”
“Having lunch in Lima tomorrow?” his father says, a bit stern now, a bit terse.
“That's the plan.”
He knows Kurt would prefer that he waits. But right now, he almost doesn't care.
*
The weird thing is, despite it being late, once he says it, no one wants to go to bed.
His mother makes cocoa and spikes it with Baileys for all of them, even as it's not remotely far enough into the year. She pulls out photo albums, filled with pictures that make his father laugh at her, but not unkindly.
It occurs to Blaine, for the first time, not only that his parents were once in love, but that they still are, and it shakes him a little bit, because suddenly he understands just why they've never quite had room for him in their hearts.
*
In the morning, he makes coffee in their kitchen, the muscle memory of where everything is still present even after six years of exile.
His father clears his throat behind him, and Blaine doesn't tense, but sighs.
“Can we talk?” his father asks.
“Would you mind if I got dressed first?” Whatever confrontation is coming, Blaine would rather look neat and sharp and ready to leave than be in sweats and a rumpled t-shirt as his father treats him as a child for whom and how he loves.
But his father says, “You don't need to,” his voice too kind, and Blaine turns to find him sitting down at their kitchen table, hands clasped in front of him.
“Did you want some coffee?” Blaine asks to stall.
*
The spoon is too loud in his own mug as he stirs, but his father started this and so now he knows all he can do to maintain any hand in this is to wait out the silence.
“I don't know if you have a plan, with Kurt --”
“I --”
His father holds up his hand. “Let me finish,” he says. “I don't know if you've got a ring picked out or if that one he's already got suffices or how any of this works. But I want you to have this, for him, if you want it,” his father says, and shoves a small box across the table to him.
Blaine is so stunned he fumbles the spoon out of his coffee and watches as the milky brown of it splatters the wax-coated yellow-checked tablecloth. He stares at the colors of it, and thinks of Kurt and their current apartment and falls in love all over again.
“It was my grandmother's. She wore it all the time. It's not traditional, I know; I always thought I'd be giving you other things for some bride I imagined. But I think Kurt – I'm fond of him in a way I can't stand, Blaine – would appreciate this more.”
Blaine opens the box, to find a small brooch, a honeybee, made of gold and diamonds.
*
When he's composed enough to go, Blaine hugs his father goodbye at the door, and calls out to his mother at the kitchen that he'll be home in time for dinner.
He gets into his car, flips on the radio, and heads out to Hummel Tire & Lube. He wants to call someone to distract him on the way there. He is so goddamn elated, but he also knows this is one of those moments he has to have alone.
*
“Someone's giddy,” Burt says with intense amusement as Blaine shakes his hand more firmly than he ever has before, and Blaine has always had a good, solid handshake.
“I stayed with my parents last night.”
Burt raises both eyebrows. “And that wasn't a disaster?”
Blaine shakes his head.
“So what're you doing out here, instead of following my kid around on the road.”
“You know he'd kill me if I did that.”
“I do,” Burt says. “I also know you.”
Blaine laughs at that. “He's really good. I mean, I know you know but, I saw it last weekend, just his ensemble role. He's really good.”
“We can't wait,” Burt says, but it's just small talk. “So cut to the chase here, before I have to start doing it for you.”
Blaine rubs his sweaty hands nervously over thighs. “I know we've already talked about this. About how it's weird and Kurt wouldn't approve and all that, but I'm going to ask him to marry me. Soon. And I'd like your blessing.”
Burt narrows his eyes a bit. “Ask soon or marry soon?”
“Ask soon.”
“Okay. Well, that's better. I thought you two agreed it would wait until after you graduated.”
“We did, and then --”
“And then the tour happened.”
“Yeah,” Blaine admits.
“And now you're both going a little crazy.”
Blaine nods.
“He give you permission to do this sooner? He know this is coming?”
“Yeah. I want to wait, as long as I can, but I don't think --”
“No. No, that's right,” Burt says, thinking about it, and sighing. “He may have wanted you to wait, but now he'll wonder what's wrong with him if you do.”
“So....” Blaine says, hopeful and still wanting Burt to formally give them his blessing.
“What'd you get him?”
Blaine fumbles the box out of his pocket and hands it to Burt. “It was my great-grandmother's,” he says.
Burt whistles low when he opens it. “You done good. And you've always had my blessing, Blaine. Both of you,” he says, clapping him on the back.
“Oh, thank god.” Blaine nearly crumples in nervous relief as he lets out a long breath. “Can I sit down for a minute?”
Burt laughs and steers him towards an old battered couch. “Don't pass out on me, 'cause there's no way I'd be letting you live that down.”
*
When he gets back in his car Sunday afternoon to head back to DC, Blaine knows the hardest part is over, although it doesn't really feel that way.
He still has to tell Wes, and he doesn't know how to make that not weird, eventhough it's not weird. And he should tell Kate and Henry too....
Suddenly, Blaine feels like he needs everyone's permission, and imagines asking them all – Alex and Rachel, Santana and Mercedes, Tina and her deep reason, Brittany and all her secret knowledge; William Schuester and his ignorance, and Sue Sylvester and her years of constant certainty in Kurt's ferocity.
If Blaine thought any of them could keep a secret, he knows, suddenly, that he would ask them all.
He wonders if this is why Kurt had insisted that this wasn't even on the table until national legalization; there have always been so many claims on them.
So Blaine jabs at his iPhone up on the dash. He has a lot of calls to make, and really, there's no time like the present.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-02-02 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-02 11:46 pm (UTC)*deep breath* Okay. So. I'm not going to quote every line that slayed me because I'd have to quote like half of the whole thing. But ... I'm still trying to figure Jay out. I just ... I don't know about him. Kurt and Blaine and all their broken togetherness is just like PERFECT, every single time you write, and it kills me and I'm so damn in love with them that my heart just aches.
And Blaine's DAD. Seriously? Seriously?? That part, the part where he KNEW and the part with the honeybee brooch ... that is the part that did me in. And then there was Burt and his typical awesomeness and how Blaine needs so much approval from EVERYONE and just ... ugh. Yeah. Perfect, as usual.
I feel like by the time the proposal actually comes (with the HONEYBEE BROOCH OMG) I will be a weeping wreck on the floor.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 01:49 am (UTC)OMG, I'm so relieved someone likes the bee brooch! It's like one of the more random things my brain has done ever, although I've had it in mind for ages.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-02 11:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 01:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-02 11:48 pm (UTC)Thank you for sharing!
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 01:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-02 11:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 01:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-02 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 01:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-02 11:57 pm (UTC)And I love Blaine's Dad in this.
The sense of relief and exhilaration for Blaine in this process so far is palpable.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 03:13 pm (UTC)And yeah, Blaine, in part, just wants to get it done now. This whole thing having been a topic for so long has made them both sort of stupid, he's decided.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 12:14 am (UTC)And this: It occurs to Blaine, for the first time, not only that his parents were once in love, but that they still are, and it shakes him a little bit, because suddenly he understands just why they've never quite had room for him in their hearts.
<3
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 03:14 pm (UTC)I was appalled at myself for how long this took, but part of it was having Kurt and Blaine in separate places and part of it is I knew so much about what they were each going through, and yet... how much of that do I really need to show?
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 12:20 am (UTC)So it's pretty clear that they have a lot of feelings about what is going on in their lives but I have no idea what they feel and what they think.
It's a bit more clear what Blaine is thinking/feeling during the part where he is telling his parents and Burt he wants to marry Kurt but then it's those other characters' thoughts that become totally unclear for me.
I really hope you won't think I'm trying to bait/bash you or anything :( And it's not that I don't like it, but I read this fic since its beginning and it kind of... lost me since a few chapters lately and I don't want to stop reading it because I love it.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 03:16 pm (UTC)A lot of this story is about communication, and miscommunication, and assumptions that happen when you're very close to someone. I want the reader to be unsure, because Kurt and Blaine are actually unsure -- of themselves, of each other, of their place in the world -- in so many ways.
But it's always good to know if something doesn't work for a reader. Certainly, I appreciate your continued interest, and if you have question, I totally don't mind them.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 12:41 am (UTC)Should Jay worry me the way he does? Like his intent isn't 100% pure?
Blaine, visiting his parents. I love his dad: " I'm fond of him in a way I can't stand". I think that's the most Blaine's father has ever said about Kurt, and I like seeing that grudging affection from Blaine's view, because it usually comes from Kurt's.
Of course Blaine would ask Burt for permission, because he and Burt have that kind of relationship, and it was perfect and both terrifying and funny.
I think my favorite part is Blaine's musings on their friends, because it tells us so much about the things that *Blaine* sees in people.
This is, as always, a wonderful installment.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 03:20 pm (UTC)Jay is... not nefarious. But he's not entirely a force for good, just because he's generous and gives valid advice. Jay is a force for Jay being entertained, among other things. Some peple sniff out the weak to be cruel; Jay has sort of sniffed out Kurt to poke him with sticks a bit. It's relatively harmless, but it's not uncomplex and isn't over.
Blaine's father really likes Kurt since the moment Kurt stormed out in the very first story. The problem is that the more he liked Kurt, the more it's forced him to see Blaine's homosexuality as reality, to see Blaine's passivity as reality, and to recognize that life is complicated and unexpected. These things, Blaine's father does not enjoy. Somewhere, eventually, the man will have the realization that even had Blaine been mostly straight, that Kurt still would have been it for him, and that will be a very weird thought process.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 01:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 03:20 pm (UTC)And they aren't quite at that point yet. Blaine still has to go through with it!
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 01:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 01:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 01:56 am (UTC)Gosh. This is perfection.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 02:30 am (UTC)I cracked up right here, because I do this and it does tend to drive some people crazy.
I really like how Blaine describes the time he's been away from his parent's home as an 'exile,' and there's something really...twisty about Blaine's father admitting that he is fond of Kurt and just can't stand that.
I don't know why, but I really love that Blaine is going to give Kurt an animal broach instead of a ring when he asks. Partly because, hello Kurt and broaches, and partly because the ring they already have just feels like...it sort of feels complicated and exhausting in a way that this just isn't.
If Blaine thought any of them could keep a secret, he knows, suddenly, that he would ask them all.
I don't know if you've ever seen it, but there's a commercial/ad that was made for Ireland a few years ago where a guy walks door to door asking everyone for permission to marry the girl he loves. It was a way of showing how ridiculous putting the legalization of gay marriage to a vote would be. This made me think of that, even though I don't think that's entirely what Blaine is thinking about here.
Lovely chapter. I always look forward to them.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 03:25 pm (UTC)Yeah... Blaine's dad and Kurt... it's weird, because there could be implications there, but it's really just that he likes that Kurt stands up to him, and he likes Kurt's wit but it's just awkward, because it underscores Blaine's gayness and passivity for him in a way he can't deal with. Dude has issues.
I think Blaine has no desire to replace that ring. It's become a wedding ring (and that'll be an issue that has to get figured out later), and it's become such a damn drama, that he actually thought about whether Kurt would be amused to have a ladies diamond solitaire and then didn't even try to figure it out, because he was like "Ugh, no more ring drama." And then his dad bailed him out, because he hadn't really come up with a solution about what he was going to give him instead.
I totally have seen that ad, but totally forgoet about it until you mentioned it!
Anyway, thank you for all your kind words.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 02:55 am (UTC)(Caught these:
beckons to him with his chin since he a six-pack in each hand, <- Think you mean "since he has a six-pack"
pushing Blaine away from trying to mall him against the hotel room door <- Should be "maul" rather than "mall"
“You'll just bet out there.” <- Should be "be" rather than "bet." :) Carry on!)
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 02:59 am (UTC)(And thanks, man, I don't know what's with me today... I'm normally a little sloppy, but yikes!)
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 02:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 03:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 02:56 am (UTC)I read upthread about you being unsure about the honeybee brooch, but first and foremost, I just wanted to say that I WANT THAT BROOCH TOO! I'm absolutely in love with it and I haven't even seen it yet! I have ideas in my head of its significance, but am ready to be pleasantly surprised....
That being said, the entire scene with Blaine's dad really had me for awhile there. . .I know there is so much bubbling just under the surface of both men, and I can't wait to see when it comes out. I loved the line about Blaine understanding how his parents didn't have enough love for him even though it only hurt all the more. It's refreshing to see Blaine's parents painted so realistically. I can't stand it when they are written as cariacatures of terrible/perfect parents.
I also love the desperation in Kurt. His willingness to withdraw from the crowd was heartbreaking, but his desire to want to do this alone versus his need to do it without Blaine really tag team to body slam his vulnerability in his new surroundings. I am deeply intrigued to see where this goes. (Sorry for all the wrestling metaphors)
Finally, I am wondering if you are planning on having any discussion with Wes in the next chapter? After all that discussion on Tumblr, I am positvely pining away for more of their interaction!!
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 03:35 pm (UTC)This whole story really pivots on BLaine's dad being a huge dick to set this whole thing in motion, but people are complicated and weird, and once it wasn't a one-shot the man had to be something other than a device. I'm sort of having fun now sorting out his layers and issues.
And yeah, Kurt is struggling. There's a part of him that wishes he was different, but people are hard for him. New people, new surroundings, being away from Blaine, the pressure of the tour -- he can do it by protecting himself, but that's the only way he can do it right now, and that's not, as Jay rightly notes, necessarily in his best interest. It's been a long time since he's really struggled (as opposed to merely feeling frustrated).
Wes is coming very soon. Blaine, of course, can't do anything simply and Wes is going to have to come to the rescue in the form of a painfully drunken weekend.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 03:18 am (UTC)It's Kurt's first tour as part of a company, Jay could reason that he's just trying to smooth Kurt's ties with everyone... I feel like he side-eyes Kurt and Blaine for being faithful so young, like he wants them to go date others (or just not be so coupley and mature) just to say that they did.
And a year? it's never just a year, it's week after week, after night after night, of not being in any place that's not with the rest of you.
The brooch is precious -- in all the meanings of the word. It's cute and frivolous but also cherished by family, expensive and so Kurt-circa-Dalton. Can't help but think Blaine's dad, in giving Kurt a girlish (not just gender-wise but youthful) gift, is being a bit wry, just like Kurt was at Christmas with his June Cleaver act.
Burt/Blaine with the... I don't know, joviality? "You're so in love with my kid, it's silly to watch you"? Must squish them together, so much.
It's so Blaine to need validation not from the legal system but from the people who make up thier own domain. I thought he and Wes had talked about this, didn't he and Pris say they were their reason for waiting? So the awkward when he and Pris have to put walk the walk and they're the ones who stall. :D But of course that's not the entire source of the wierd; there will always be a little pocket of jellis in Wes about Kurt, I think, not in a proprietary way but in a road-not-taken way, yes?
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 03:40 pm (UTC)And yeah, Jay has a lot of judgements. He's not wrong about Kurt wanting to make friends and not seem standoffish, because he has to live and work with these people in awkward circumstances for a year, but Jay is also a bit of a force for chaos, and his good advice is mixed with his own personal boredom.
And yeah, Blaine's dad is totally playing. Once he's on board with something, even clumsily, he goes all in, and he can't do this one without smirking, because he's still uncomfortable. But it's meant kindly.
Burt is infinitely amused by Blaine. Pretty much saying, "So does that seem like a good idea?" or "What does Kurt think?" are his favorite ways to mess with Blaine ever. I think Blaine, despite being affable with him, doesn't quite get how much Burt plays.
Wes and Pris said they would wait to set a date until Kurt and Blaine good. Once the court decision came, they went on to set a date, because Kurt and Blaine could do whatever they wanted on their own time now. Blaine's weird is coming from the situation made Wes make this lovely gesture when he proposed to Pris, but Blaine has no lovely gesture to offer in return, and now he feels weird about it.
And yeah, Wes ALWAYS looks and Blaine and sees things about his life as they could have been, both in terms of being with Blaine and in terms of his life just being more like Blaines.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 03:48 am (UTC)Anyway, I love this fic but it just does something to me where I don't feel happy after reading it, but sort of morose. And that might sound like a criticism of you, but it really really isn't because your writing is just beautiful. The dialogue and the character's thoughts and everything is just so poignant that I want to skip forward and read forever, yet so laced with tension that I never want to read ahead because I'm so scared of Blaine or Kurt being hurt. I'm sorry, this is all a bit rambly, but just wanted to say I was happy for the update and you continue to amaze me.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 03:41 pm (UTC)And no, that's fair. This is a story about how even the good stuff is hard and nothing is really certain, and is about two people who have no experience in other relationships to know that. It is hard and scary! And I'm a melancholy writer by nature, so yeah.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 03:58 am (UTC)He absolutely will.
Nothing anyone can say will ever change this in my mind and I will use this as an example every time.
SOOO perfext
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 06:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 04:02 am (UTC)Also, yay for Blaine getting his shit together and not falling apart like in Shangai. Progress!
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 06:03 am (UTC)Blaine's still working on having his shit together. But this is a lot better. He's trying to be proactively not a mess.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 05:02 am (UTC)...you're very mellow for a guy who's an open wound, but what is up with you?”
“How long have you wanted to ask that?” he asks, still faintly entertained.
“Since we met,” she says, reaching up to tuck a slightly stray curl behind his ear.
Heh. That made me laugh. Kate isn’t the only one who wants to know. :) I do like that they’re good enough friends that she can say it and Blaine won’t run away.
Blaine understanding about not going to the show was lovely. So was him sending the flowers. Boys.
It's not that he needs to do this without Blaine; it's that he needs to do it alone.
Oh, I get that. Kurt is definitely an introvert and needs his alone time and that must be a hard thing to be in a touring company. But I also get Jay’s comment, because establishing relationships and being a part of the group that people will trust and want to work with also matters; it’s about professionalism. And that plays into the moment outside the theatre with Blaine later on...
I suspect Jay will need to talk to Kurt about this again at some point, because it's where their codependency starts to become a professional problem.
“You're not here by the skin of your teeth, Kurt.
That was interesting. Jay clearly has Opinions about and assessments of his castmates, which makes sense since he’s been doing this a while and Kurt does, after all, understudy his role...
It also implies that some of the rest of the cast are.
Blaine wonders if this is the home Kurt always carries around with him, a sense that he always is, and has always been, on stage.
Wow, this image. Because Kurt kind of does: he’s always aware of being observed, and he performs his life as a story at the same time as he lives it, though in a different way from how characters like Rachel do.
Even as part of a chorus, Blaine can tell when Kurt is performing pain.
Oh, my heart. But I like the turn, here – how the proposal goes from being only something Blaine needs/wants to partly being a response to Kurt’s “It's what I want. The problem is I want more.”
The whole section with Blaine in his parents’ house was heart-achey but oddly hopeful at the same time. I think they both deal better with him now that he’s established as an independent adult with a life elsewhere? Less their child, more their equal?
It occurs to Blaine, for the first time, not only that his parents were once in love, but that they still are, and it shakes him a little bit, because suddenly he understands just why they've never quite had room for him in their hearts.
This reversal of perspective is both lovely and adult, and quite painful. But it’s also what Kurt and Blaine must look like to some of those outside their relationship, isn’t it?
The gift of the brooch...oh. Very lovely and fitting and real, but brooches have pins, and the layered implications and possibilities of I'm fond of him in a way I can't stand, Blaine are a bit like being stabbed with one when you didn’t expect it.
“He may have wanted you to wait, but now he'll wonder what's wrong with him if you do.”
Hee. Burt does know his son, doesn’t he...
Sue Sylvester and her years of constant certainty in Kurt's ferocity.
This killed me. I am dead.
~goes to make hearteyes atBlaine some more~
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 05:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 05:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 05:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 05:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 05:48 am (UTC)