Work Text:
They’re watching Les Misérables. Blaine is tucked into his side, settled temple to shoulder and completely motionless other than the curl of his fingers around Kurt’s bicep. His grip has been steadily tightening since Fantine entered the docks.
By virtue of earning a degree in musical theatre, Kurt’s seen this musical more times than he can count almost by obligation. It’s one of his favorites, of course, but it’s a rare occurrence that he sits down and watches it from start to finish anymore.
But tonight is movie night. And Blaine’s turn to choose.
When he selected it, snuggling against Kurt and tossing a blanket over their twined bodies, Kurt had brushed his fingers through his loose curls and stared at him in surprise.
It’s one of Blaine’s favorites too, but the poignancy of the seemingly endless peril always seems to strike him on a deeper level than Kurt’s ever been able to identify with. True, he’s cried through it many times, but the forthcoming redemption always arrives by the end of the film, and with it, the closure of Kurt’s grief.
In contrast, Blaine carries the sorrow of the movie like an emotional burden that resides deep within his being for several hours, occasionally days, after they watch it. For that reason, he watches it sparingly and only when he has enough emotional stability to endure it.
So Kurt watched him-- with lips pulled into a soft, affectionate smile he watched while Blaine sang along to the first twenty minutes of the film in a deep and resonant voice that barely resembled his own voice (or the voice of Jean Valjean, for that matter). The urge to tease him tickled through his chest, but he held back and let Blaine perform for both their pleasure. He’s intimately familiar with Blaine’s deep yearning for a rich baritone register, though Kurt will never stop attempting to convince him his voice is achingly perfect just the way it is.
Gradually he fell silent, and Kurt was there to collect him, sweep him into arms he could cling to as Blaine grew completely immersed, wide glowing hazel eyes and soft trembling lips.
Now he sits and strokes Blaine’s back, swirling around the curve of his shoulder and brushing up to the hair at the nape of his neck. Halfway through I Dreamed A Dream, precisely when Kurt expects it, he hears the first sniffle. Blaine tips his face into Kurt’s shoulder, keeps one eye glued on the screen, and Kurt watches the reflection of the film drizzle down the slope of Blaine’s cheek in a fat, warm tear. Blaine’s fingers clench around Kurt’s arm, then release.
It’s an incredibly vulnerable moment, a moment when Kurt sees the most tender of Blaine’s qualities. A heart so genuinely desperate to please and fill the world with joy that even the despair of a fictional character breaks it in two. A sensitive soul that somehow manages to empathize with the pain of others, despite never experiencing the exact circumstances. Blaine’s compassion extends to others on an avenue that is truly astounding.
Kurt loves him in ways he fails to articulate.
Blaine doesn’t like to be jostled too much when he’s emotionally invested in a movie or scene before him, so Kurt sits comfortably still and gives him time. The sobs wring through him, and eventually, when Blaine’s tears have subsided and he’s wiping at his nose, Kurt turns his chin and kisses his forehead softly.
“I love you,” he breathes into his hairline. Blaine gives him a shaky, bashfully embarrassed laugh, the tenderly beautiful kind that only comes after someone has been crying, and Kurt hears the gratitude and trust that goes unsaid and far more beyond it.
Once the pin-drop, disheartened scenes of the movie have been exhaled like a punch of air and the exuberant vigor is starting to pick up, Kurt knows that Blaine is in a steady enough state for him to leave for a moment.
He stands, kissing each of Blaine’s warm palms and then the salt of his tear stained lips, and shuffles off to the kitchen for a minute to collect some tissues and dish Blaine a bowl of his favorite double fudge brownie ice cream.
When he returns, he hands the items off to Blaine, then hooks his arm under the bend of Blaine’s knees and pulls him across his lap, giggling when Blaine taps his cold spoon against the tip of Kurt’s nose, then slowly kisses the chocolate clean off.
It only takes a few minutes for Blaine to bounce back to loudly belting Enjolras’s lines around mouthfuls of ice cream and making cheeky comments about Aaron Tveit that Kurt pinches his thigh for (though he wholeheartedly agrees). Kurt rubs patterns over Blaine's sweatpant clad thigh and thanks whatever it is that’s out there in the universe for so graciously placing this beautifully expressive and kindhearted boy in his life.
Then he wraps his arms securely around Blaine’s waist, hands him more tissues, and waits for the cycle to start all over again as Javert’s suicide and Eponine’s death approach.