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Christmas starts off pretty great actually, which surprises him a lot.
It’s not like the movies, where the family wakes up together and everyone opens presents and hugs each other and cries, which he’s kinda thankful for because there’s no way he’s hugging his dad.
He wakes up and texts Cooper merry christmas i wish you were here to suffer dinner at dad’s with me, and Cooper texts back sometime later MERRY XMAS LITTLE BROTHER!! what did you get me?
He gives his mom the purse he bought her, wrapped in tissue paper and stuffed in a gift bag, and when she opens it he realizes he left the pricetag on and he expects her to scoff, to dismiss it, but instead she actually says thank you and hugs him.
There were no surprises under the tree for him, just a few gift cards and money for gas.
He wishes he had Kurt’s number to text him, or maybe even call him, and see how his day is going.
Then at four he drives to Westerville, wishing he were going anywhere else in the world, but it feels like the right thing to do. Even if it means putting up with his stuffy old grandparents and his dad and all his annoying cousins.
“So Blainey,” his dad says at dinner, while everyone else is busy with their own conversations. “How’s life in public school? Not getting into any more trouble I hope.”
He knows he’s an embarrassment to his dad, since his whole side of the family went to Dalton, but he doesn’t really care. It’s not like any of his relatives have gone on to change the world.
He shrugs, says with his mouthful, “It’s fine.”
His dad looks annoyed, setting his fork down, and Blaine doesn’t know why he’s acting that way, because at least he showed up, his dad can’t exactly expect him to carry on conversation. They both know conversation only leads down the road to confrontation and then an argument that never gets settled.
“Okay, are you learning anything new? How are the teachers?”
He swallows his mouthful, takes a sip of water and thinks about it, then settles on, “Kinda, and they all suck, but that’s not really a surprise. I’m in a glee club though, kinda against my will but . . it’s fun.”
“Oh, no.” His dad sounds serious, looks serious, propping his chin up on his folded hands and lowering his eyes at Blaine. “Glee club? As in, a club where you sing . . what? Showtunes?”
He’s used to this tone of voice, used to the weight of it along his shoulders and down his spine, and over the years he’s been able to strengthen his muscles to try and support it but he sometimes sinks, like now.
“Mm yeah, I guess. They sing, I watch, that’s kinda the deal, but it could change.”
His dad shakes his head, and seems to look around the table to make sure nobody else is listening, then leans further across the table and says in a low voice, “I don’t want you wasting your time in some little glee club. You’re a smart boy, you just need to focus.”
And he’s heard this conversation before, remembers it distantly, not between him and his dad but rather his dad and his brother, way back when he was still little and his brother still lived with them.
“Like Cooper?” he asks, voice raising, almost hoping to catch the attention of everyone around them.
His dad turns red everywhere, up to the dark roots of his hair, and Blaine wants to hate him because he knew this would happen, didn’t he?
“Yes like Cooper,” his dad nearly hisses, so low Blaine barely hears it. “Did you know we’re still sending him money every other month? Turns out acting doesn’t always pay the rent.”
Blaine drops his fork and pushes his plate back, folds his arms and looks down, because he doesn’t want to get mad here, not today, not now when this day was going so good.
“Cooper seems happy to me, isn’t that what matters?” he asks, his heart sinking and his voice sullen. “It’s just a stupid glee club, can’t you just fucking chill out for once?”
“I’ll chill out when you start to take things seriously!” his dad says harshly, and Blaine’s amazed he hasn’t started yelling yet. “One of us has to.”
With that, the conversation ends, and as hard as he tries to push it away, it gets to him.
-
New Year’s comes and goes, it’s just another day to him.
He was looking forward for school to start again, but he’s not so much anymore.
Kurt will be there, so there’s that.
It’s a fact that he can’t stop thinking about actually, which at first was nice, getting lost in daydreams, but now it’s annoying because he knows those dreams will never come true. So he’s just torturing himself by thinking them.
He wonders what it’d be like to actually know him, and be like all the other kids in glee club who can talk to him with ease and hug him and wave to him and be around him all the time, without ever feeling bad about it.
He wonders and wanders some more, too, but he stops himself before that goes too far.
He can’t like Kurt, it’s as simple as that. It’s a fact that he’s known before all other facts.
Because when you want something, you never get to keep it.
Growing up all he wanted was for both his parents to show up at his school plays. All he wanted was to be treated the way regular kids do, without all those expectations that he could never meet. He wanted his mom and dad to be in love always, like everyone else’s parents, and he didn’t want to split his time between his mom’s house and his dad’s house.
Being grown up, all he wanted was to go to a regular school and do regular things and he wanted those goddamn expectations to stop, wanted to stop feeling like a failure, wanted to find a way to care about things without feeling like he wasn’t caring enough, wanted to care about things and have somebody else care with him.
He got bits a pieces of what he wanted, but not all, and not forever.
Like now, he shouldn’t give a shit what his dad thinks, but he kinda does, he kinda doesn’t want to fail anymore.
So if he wants Kurt . . .
Then it sucks and he can’t do anything about it so he won’t even try to complain, because Kurt will just find a way to leave him.
-
The rational part of his brain says give it up, give it up, you have to give it up.
The rational part of his brain disintegrates the second he sees Kurt.
And thankfully, it’s Kurt who says hi first, eyes lighting up when he sees Blaine just outside the cafeteria at lunch.
“Hi,” Kurt says, and his voice is still quiet, like everything he has to say to Blaine is a secret. “How are - how are you?”
He knows what he should do, and that’s definitely not hold the door open for Kurt and follow him into the cafeteria and smile at him.
He does it anyway.
“Fantastic,” he says, but lets his smile dim and shoves his hands into his pockets. “Not really looking forward to this afternoon, but I’ll survive.”
Kurt smiles, hands behind his back and eyes on the ground, and it’s then that Blaine notices just how close Kurt is, their feet side by side.
“Well we can survive it together,” Kurt says, then laughs, and Blaine laughs too because he guesses it’s supposed to be a joke. “How was your Christmas?”
He makes a face and stops walking, maybe to stop their time together from ending because he sees Kurt’s friends at a nearby table. “It was good. As good as Christmas can be with my family. Got a shit ton of gift cards.”
He kinda loves the way Kurt’s features sharpen, like he’s judging something, judging Blaine, and he loves how that sharpness melts away when he smiles.
“How creative.”
“Yeah, so if you have any ideas on how to spend a hundred dollars at a coffee shop, let me know.”
Shit.
Kurt’s smile widens in surprise, eyes knowing on Blaine.
Shit.
He realizes what that sounds like.
“You should go sit with your friends, I’ll see you later,” he says, voice more bold and less friendly, patting Kurt on the shoulder before quickly walking away.
-
He sits in his seat during glee club and tells himself again, he can’t.
He can’t he shouldn’t he isn’t he won’t.
But he wants to.
Kurt chooses to sit directly next to him, even though he rarely ever sits in the back row, and he says hello to Blaine so casually, like it’s just a thing they do now.
While he wants to be elated that Kurt’s there, next to him, even though he really doesn’t have to be, he can’t stop thinking about what his dad said.
Kurt is a positive thing, maybe the brightest thing that Blaine’s come across in his life, but nothing will ever be enough to overpower the rest, to overpower reality.
It’d be nice to be free, to be free in the way everyone here is when they sing, free in the way that he’d never have to be stuck in the place between ‘not caring’ and ‘caring too much’ ever again. He doesn’t care what happens to him in the future, not really, he just cares that whatever it is, it doesn’t make his dad look down on him, because he’s so fucking sick of that. He cares about that too much, maybe.
And, like all things, if he wants this, he’ll never get it. Because you only ever get what you deserve. So he’s wasting his time here. Just like his dad said.
“I swear to god, if we’re doing another rock band from the seventies, I’m storming out of here,” Kurt whispers, suddenly much closer to him than he was a few seconds ago.
He wants to laugh, but he only smiles, quick and then it’s gone. “I think I heard Mr. Schue mention something about the Eagles.”
Kurt closes his eyes tightly and holds out his hand, mouth turned down. “I’d rather eat my own hair.”
“Likewise,” Blaine hums, and closes his eyes, slipping further down his seat, ready to sleep. “Wake me up when it’s over.”
But he can’t. Because Kurt is right next to him. And he wants to talk to Kurt while he can. He wants to talk to Kurt always.
Everyone quiets down when Mr. Schue starts talking, and Blaine barely focuses on him, actively reminding himself the entire time that it doesn’t matter. He only becomes slightly interested when Mr. Schue announces that the theme for the week will be freedom, starting anew, to welcome the New Year, and he only becomes slightly interested in that because Kurt lets out a squeal and hisses ‘Rachel!’ really loudly, indicating between the two of them and using some sort of telepathy to brainstorm ideas.
Rachel seems to get it, because she jumps up and says, “Kurt and I will happily start off the week for us all.”
He doesn’t even complain, just sits and smiles as the music starts up and actually pays attention, because Kurt is incredible and Rachel isn’t that bad and he only feels stupid when everyone starts to get up and dance, and he doesn’t know how anyone on this earth could possibly dance to Nelly Furtado, but they do.
And he quickly learns how when Kurt grabs his hand and yanks him up.
It’s a moment of panic, being pulled into a fast moving crowd without being warned, it’s a moment of not being able to free himself from Kurt’s grip, but it’s Kurt, and once he accepts that, he lets it.
He’s never been this close to Kurt for this long and it’s that fact alone that makes him forget that he’s in a room with a bunch of people that he hates, dancing to a song that he hates even more, and maybe it’s his voice and his smile that makes Blaine smile and maybe it’s just Kurt that makes him forget that he can’t.
He spins Kurt, and Kurt laughs, and he laughs, and he says somewhere in the middle of all of it, “This is so stupid.”
Kurt smirks, actually smirks, hand holding his tight, and says back, “You’re still doing it.”
It’s the first time since he got here, way back in November, that he’s actually gotten out of his seat and done something, and he didn’t plan on this and he was just about to give up, because he can’t, but for some reason he feels like he can.
-
He gets out of the choir room a bit sweaty, a bit gross, heated in the face and in the chest and everywhere that he possibly can be, and Kurt’s busy talking with Rachel so he decides to leave him alone because he doesn’t want to say the wrong thing, and ruin whatever feeling he’s feeling now because of Kurt.
He doesn’t even mind the looks that everyone else gives him as they leave, doesn’t even mind the snickers and the pointing.
It’s when he’s almost out the doors of the school that he hears a breathless, “See?”
He turns around, and he knows it’s Kurt but he still feels his heart give out. He frowns, narrows his eyes at Kurt and asks, “See what?”
Kurt grins and starts to walk, both of them exiting the school and walking out into the parking lot, the cold air welcoming against his still-heated face.
“I told you we’d survive it together,” Kurt says, taking careful steps to avoid the ice. “And we did.”
Blaine smiles, shakes his head a little but he can’t shake off his smile. “Yeah, I guess we did. But I’m never doing that again.”
Kurt shrugs one shoulder and continues to grin. “At least you tried.”
His car comes into view, but he doesn’t want to go, and even if he did go he wouldn’t make it very far without stopping his car and turning back around and asking Kurt what he’s doing and why, because there’s nothing to like about him, and he doesn’t understand why Kurt’s acting like he does.
So he stops walking and turns to Kurt, and lets himself freeze over and seal up, like he’s done every other day in his life, smile vanishing and eyes hardening.
“Kurt,” he says, and his voice betrays him because his voice sounds weak. “I - what are you doing?”
Kurt tilts his head to the side, a brief second of something sad flickering across his face. “I - I don’t know what you mean. What am I doing?”
He has to look down because he can’t look at Kurt anymore. “You know . . talking to me all the time and stuff. You never did it before. You shouldn’t.”
“Why?” Kurt asks, and barks out a vicious laugh, looking more confused than somebody lost at sea. “Is there something wrong with you that I don’t know about? Racist? Homophobic? Bloodsucking vampire -”
“Kurt,” he says through his straining smile, holding up a hand to stop him. “I’m just - I’m not good at this. Would I love to make out with you and maybe get in your pants? Sure. Is it because you’re the only other gay kid in this school? Maybe. Am I going to do anything? No.”
Kurt doesn’t even look taken back, which was Blaine’s goal in saying those things, and he sighs, rolls his eyes and takes a step back.
“You don’t scare me, Blaine,” Kurt says, assertive and forceful and fearsome, looking right at Blaine. “Maybe you should, maybe you want to . . but you don’t.”
He doesn’t know what to say, he just knows what he feels.
Sudden and hard and heavy in his chest.
So he says the cheesiest thing that’s ever crossed his mind, crosses his arms tight and scoffs and says darkly, “You don’t even know me.”
“I - I want to,” Kurt says instantly, still not sounding scared even though his lips are now pressed tight, his hands curling and uncurling by his sides. “Do you want to - we could go for coffee? I know you hate being in the choir room.”
He’s never felt like this before, so even though he hears Kurt’s words they don’t settle right away. It feels like all the air has been sucked out of his lungs, like he’ll never breathe again, like he doesn’t even need to breathe again. Nobody’s ever wanted anything from him . . . nobody’s ever wanted him.
He makes a humming noise, considering it even though he knows his answer, and squints one eye at Kurt and asks, “Who’s paying?”
Kurt’s smile comes back and then Blaine can breathe again.
“You’re the one with the hundred dollar gift card.”