Work Text:
It happens again. Not like that, but yeah it happens. Again.
They live together again, one more try (the last try: he can't imagine what it would be like to be stuck here, back and forth on this thing with Kurt forever) and learn to share their space.
It's better. It's so much better. They both finally give up relax into it and let themselves find what has always been there, the ease and affection that has been between them since the moment they met. Blaine forgives himself enough to stop trying so hard to be perfect, and Kurt unbends enough to just... let them be. The summer is a soft focus montage of time spent with June and Kurt (the way it always should have been) and work and play and their loft, sticky in the summer afternoon and dark at night.
It's perfect. He knew it would be.
Kurt's parents come to visit in mid-August, right in the middle of Burt's summer recess. He can't tell which of them is most excited to see them, although he gives the edge to Kurt, who always seems most like himself when his dad is there. It's a way they're different, because Blaine never feels more like a puppet on too-short strings than whenever his parents are around. He gets it, though - he'd spent an entire raging night during the spring of his junior year filling the pages of a spiral notebook with all the ways Burt Hummel is a better dad than his own. It's not a proud memory - he'd been such a child - but that doesn't mean that everything he had written wasn't at least a little true.
So they're having a late dinner the night they fly in, a spinach salad with shrimp and avocado and feta that Kurt had budgeted for (shrimp are pricey - he had had no idea), and dinner is just winding down enough for Kurt to start making twitchy moves toward the closet that holds his plumber's torch, his favorite little new baby of a gadget that they had to have to finish out crème brûlée and for all of their household torching needs in future. Kurt is sure there will be some, and Blaine loves the idea of preparing their household and Kurt has always looked good butching out a little bit, and so far the only casualties have been a couple of dish towels that Rachel had left behind. Blaine is happy, excited to enjoy Kurt's excitement, zoning out and leaning back in his chair and grinning over the kind of full-bellied chatter that is a staple of these reunions, when all of sudden Carole laughs high and a little manic and says, "oh my god, are you kidding me right now? What a load of-" and she stops herself right there.
Blaine is instantly on alert - somehow this has turned bad, he can feel it in the room - and when he glances to Burt he's watching his wife and grinning wide. "Uh-huh, almost got you that time, didn't it? I was so close."
Carole rolls her eyes and slaps him across the arm before she stands and starts looking for something to do, grabbing the pitcher off the table to head to the faucet for more water. Burt tilts his head back to watch her go, grinning, and then looks back at him and Kurt. "Both our tongues have gotten a little salty in Washington - we went cold turkey, and we have a bet. I've been trying to get her to break since we got back home - shoulda known that all I'd have to do to get her close is mention that loser she was dating when we got back together."
Kurt looks delighted. "Carole! Were you two-timing my dad?" His laughter is easy, a full high peal that just makes his dad grin harder and Carole thwap him on the head with a towel as she passes.
And this is... fuck, it's too close. He forgets to watch Kurt for a minute, too aware of his own body and the adrenalin zipping through his arms and legs - he makes himself stay relaxed in the chair, keeps his hands loose across his belly. When he zones back in, Burt and Carole are giving each other playful hell, their bodies turned toward each other from across the room and their eyes alight, but Kurt is watching him, his smile melting across his face to crystallize into something a little sad and knowing.
He gets a little lost then, there in that face. He wants him so much it hurts deep, the sweetest ache that can never be completely satisfied no matter how close he holds him, and when the corner of Kurt's mouth turns back up and he reaches for him, he goes and meets him. Their hands find each other over the table, just like they always have, and he squeezes tight, finds him and holds, and when he breaks eye contact to look over at Kurt's parents, they're laughing and lost to their own conversation.
Burt says, "no, wait, was it Jethro? That might have been it. Or maybe that was just what he liked listening to. What's that song, 'Thick as a Brick'?" and Carole swats at him and says, "Careful there, buddy, I still know where to find him."
Blaine has no idea how they do that.
---
After the torch has made its grand debut, after everybody has had a turn crystalizing their own dessert with varying degrees of success and Burt has tried to convince Carole that this is just the thing they have always needed, and after his in-laws have taken their leave to head to a hotel for the night, they putter in the kitchen. Kurt seems happy, content – he's humming under his breath while he mixes waffle batter for the morning, and his movements are fluid and easy, and it makes Blaine breathe a little bit easier. It's been months long since he felt this guarded, this alert and acutely aware of Kurt's mood, but the more time passes the more he feels like, okay, they made it past this. It's okay.
When they slide into bed, Kurt tosses over his shoulder, "Big spoon, calling it," before he takes one last swallow of water and hits the lamp. Blaine smiles into his pillow as he turns and assumes the position, and he sighs when Kurt snugs around him, his arm coming around to cradle him and slide under his own so Blaine can clasp his hand against his chest.
Kurt whispers, "Tonight was great, thanks."
"You know I love your family."
"Our family, soon enough." And Blaine smiles, because yeah, that's a pretty sweet deal. Sam is still a little jealous.
They breathe together, settling in, the noises of their home in the middle of the night blanketing them just like always. It's soothing and everything he has ever wanted with Kurt, and he starts to drift to sleep to the rhythm of Kurt's breath. And then Kurt says, right against his ear, "Do you ever want to tell me about him?"
Blaine jerks wide awake, makes a low noise in his throat that comes out more pissed than he even really feels. "Ugh." So here it is.
Kurt is quiet, brushing his thumb over Blaine's chest, steady and easy, just like every night they sleep this way. "No?" he whispers. It's the first time he's ever asked – he's never wanted to know before, always run from the knowledge like it could hurt him all over again.
"I thought we were done with this. I'm sorry. I don't know how else to say it."
"No, I don't mean – well, I don't know. Maybe I do. It's not that I mean to torture you, but I-" Kurt is quiet for a second. "I probably don't mind as much as you want me to."
"You think?"
They're quiet again then, and the noises of their building at night shift. Five minutes ago they were urban crickets – the pipes creaking, music through the walls, voices and laughter and cars from the street – soothing white noise that has come to feel like home. Now he can hear the clock ticking through them, and every creak of this old building feels ominous, like it could suffocate them at any moment. And then Kurt starts talking, his voice low and steady, so serious.
"When it happened, what was the worst was that I felt like I didn't know you anymore, and that meant I didn't even know myself anymore. It felt like you had taken something that we discovered together and just… passed it around, like it didn't matter, to somebody whose name wasn't even important. I felt like I didn't even know my own body anymore, like I didn't know what it wanted and how it worked and what it was for. And then I felt so stupid, like I had made something so important that really wasn't, only you were so upset too and I – I still don't understand it."
He closes his eyes and he sighs. It's not that they haven't talked about it. They have. Maybe not enough, though, because here they still are.
"There was Adam," he finally says – it's a thing he's never wanted to say, because he knows it isn't the point, but maybe it is, a little. "There was at least Adam. And I've seen you when we're out, like at that club, and it wasn't just because you were with me. You're different – you live in your body more, you're more comfortable. And I haven't wanted to ask but… I'm pretty sure he wasn't the only one, Kurt. Aren't there names I don't know, too?"
Kurt freezes for a second before he sighs. "Well I don't either, so."
Blaine startles. "Really?"
Kurt presses a kiss against the back of his neck, long and slow, before he says, "It was a stressful time," his voice a little arch.
Blaine snorts out a laugh accidentally, and it cuts through the tension. He turns in Kurt's arms then, looks at him. His face in low light is serious, although his eyes are… okay. He's okay. "Seriously?"
"Not like that. Never. But I did go out, I did… meet people."
He wonders if he even wants to know. Of course he wants to know. One day, when it can be easy – he wants to know everything about Kurt. "It sounds like you did more than meet them."
"People can be much friendlier in New York than some of our recent experiences would suggest," Kurt says, his voice dry, and that is it, Blaine tips his head forward to rest against his shoulder and just giggles, breaks the lingering anxiety for a few seconds, because Kurt is still here, which is all he has ever needed.
"Oh god, Kurt, I love you so much."
Kurt breathes in deep, and Blaine can feel the draft through his hair where Kurt's buried his nose, and then his breath back out when he says, airy and content and like it comes from the bottom of his lungs, "I know, I know you do. I love you too."
That sits between them like it has for so long, because it's true. The noises of their home are back to their comforting hum, and Kurt's breath is warm and familiar in his hair. And here they are, clinging to each other one more time, while they make another pass at this other thing that has never stopped sitting between them. Blaine starts, the guilt roiling in his gut, tempered only by frustration that he can't make it disappear.
"It's just – god, Kurt, I hate thinking about it. It was one stupid night. I have spent the entire year trying to fix it and undo it, and it feels like it is never going to be over and I am never going to stop paying for it, and everything is always back to that, every stupid little fight, and I don't – "
Kurt breaks the rules, interrupts to say, "If you mean the thing with June, then yes, it was. And don't say that's not fair to you. I need you to trust that I am not going anywhere, Blaine, that's the whole point, that's why we decided it was a choice, because every time you lie to me it makes it harder to trust you, but it's like you keep doing it because you don't trust me to say something if I am unhappy, and I have no idea what made you think that. I don't know what I did to make you feel like I am going to just leave at any moment, but – "
And fuck it, turnabout is fair play, at least here. "Because you already left."
The first time he had said it, months ago, Kurt had paled and recoiled and sat quiet for 30 seconds before he spoke again. Every time they've done this since, he's said the same thing. Blaine can almost recite it by now.
"But you told me to. You made it a musical number – there were cups and jump ropes and Cheerios, for god's sake."
"I know I did, but you still did it. And I felt it – I felt every time you didn't answer the phone, and every time you didn't return a call, and every time you were too busy to make room for me. You didn't just leave Ohio – you left me. Maybe that wasn't ever about trust – it's not that I didn't think you wouldn't come back. But I needed you then."
It's such a stupid argument, and this is where it always stalls, just like it does tonight. Every time they have it they come down to this very place. Blaine says he felt abandoned, Kurt defends himself, and so it ends up being about whose fault it was. Which he hates, because even as he's trying to explain to Kurt how he felt, he knows it's bullshit – Kurt threw out a handful of grenades, but he picked one up and pulled the pin. He didn't know that's what it was at the time, but he's sure it's what he did. He's just as sure that Kurt had no idea that he was leaving Blaine with no other options that he could actually take. It's… terminally fucked up, an impasse they can't quite make their way around.
And it always will be, unless they find a way to make it not be. He wants what he saw earlier in the kitchen – he wants it to be over, established, a fact that is out there, so it's not always right here between them, ready to blow up again at any moment.
He doesn't even take another full breath – he just starts. "His name was Eli – I don't know his last name. He was at school in Columbus. I met him on facebook through one of the show choir groups. I've never seen him before or since, and I deleted him and the group from my account while I was sitting in my car before I left his place. We made out and jacked off together. I hated everything about it before I even left his place." It comes out in one breath, one long confession that feels so fucking worthless, because it was so long ago, but there it is. Kurt is still quiet, although his breath is still moving through Blaine's hair. "That's it."
"Oh," says Kurt. "Oh. Okay."
Blaine waits. He can't hear anything anymore, just the hitch in Kurt's breath when his nails scrape against Kurt's back and the beat of his heart. There's a squeal of brakes from outside and a long, drunk thread of laughter, and it's – okay, it's there, but it's muffled, like everything in the world is right here in this bed.
"It's not –" he shakes his head, burrows further into Kurt's shoulder. "Kurt, whatever you ever imagined, whatever you thought it meant about you or about us – it was never that. I was– I fell apart for a little while, and I needed something to put me together. You know now how that happens. And you weren't there, you had removed yourself as an option, and I looked for something else that I thought might feel the same way. And the whole point is that it just – really, really didn't."
He lifts his head, looks at Kurt's face. He's so… Kurt is so beautiful to him. He always has been, but he keeps getting more beautiful. New York has been so good to him, and now that it feels less like an attack on him, he can just appreciate it a little. Kurt's eyes are wide. "Do you – did you not really want to know?"
"I don't know," Kurt says. "I think maybe I did? Tonight, anyway – I felt like I should know. Tonight was… intense. With my parents, I mean. How they did that."
Blaine nods, lifts one hand from Kurt's back to touch his face. It's so… his jawline is insane in this sliver of light from the streetlamp right now, wow. "I want that, Kurt. I want it to be just like that. It happened. It happened and it was awful and I have always regretted it and I always will. But that's not – that's not what we are about."
"No. It's not. I… okay."
Blaine kisses him then, surges forward like his whole body needs it, because he's pretty sure it does. Kurt's mouth is warm, his hands forgiving and grasping.
The kiss breaks – it's too new, this piece of information, and Kurt pulls back, gentles things so that they're nose to nose in their bed, where they belong, looking at each other.
Kurt's eyes are bright and joyfully vicious. "Cunningham," Kurt whispers. "Eli Cunningham. He came out of Teenage Scream in Indianapolis – that has to be him. Weird Owen Wilson nose, only without the cheekbones. Oh my god, you could have done so much better. "
And just like that, a new phase of their life together begins.