Work Text:
Kurt isn’t even aware it’s happening at first. He’s sitting in the dugout, eyes on the field, watching as Finn Hudson stands at the plate and wiggles his bat. It’s the top of the sixth and he feels good. His arm is loose, he’s been hitting his spots all night, and Blaine hasn’t had to visit him on the mound once.He turns to his left, expecting to find Blaine and go over the batters that are due up for Bourne, but the bench is empty. He’s all alone at the end of the dugout, his entire team huddled at the other end. He frowns because even though he’s not close with most of his teammates, they’ve never been so obvious about staying away from him.
"Anderson!" He calls out, hoping to get Blaine’s attention. He knows Blaine hears him, he can see Blaine bite his lip and fight to keep his eyes away from Kurt. Blaine doesn’t answer Kurt and not one of his teammates looks up at him.
Kurt huffs and leans back on the bench, arms folded across his chest. If Blaine wants to ignore him, that’s fine. He knows they agreed that it was a one time thing, their bodies pressed together on the couch in their living room, lips and hands and hips and falling apart. Kurt gets that, he respects that, and he hasn’t acted any differently towards Blaine since it happened. The silent treatment Blaine seems to be giving him now is unexpected and unwarranted and it pisses Kurt off, makes him twist on the bench in anger.
Kurt turns back to the field, focusing on the game and forcing himself to keep his eyes away from all of his teammates that are talking to each other at the opposite end of the dugout, but ignoring him. He watches as Hudson strikes out, watches a few minutes later when the opposing short stop bobbles the ball for an error, notices all of the zeros up on the scoreboard.
And then it hits him, like a fastball right to his chest. The zeros, all the zeros, one after the other. His mind is reeling, trying to recall the past five innings. He thinks back, remembers that he hasn’t allowed a hit or a walk, his teammates haven’t made any errors. He’s perfect through five innings. He feels his stomach drop to his feet, toes bouncing up and down. He feels pinpricks behind his eyes and realizes why all of his teammates are ignoring him.
The innings race by in a blur, strikeouts and weak ground balls to the infield. There always seems to be the play during a perfect game; the left fielder reaching over the wall to bring back a home run, the third baseman extending his body just a few extra inches to grab a ground ball and fire to first, the short stop jumping higher than he ever has to pick the ball out of the air. None of that happens tonight, though. Kurt is completely locked in and when a batter does make contact with the ball, it’s a shallow pop fly to the outfield or an easy ground ball to one of the infielders behind him.
Kurt walks out of the dugout for the top of the ninth, skipping over the chalk outlines and keeping his eyes away from the wooden scoreboard. Cotuit has a decent lead, up by four, and Kurt is barely at a hundred pitches. He throws a few warmup pitches to Blaine while the hitter from Bourne takes a few swings in the on deck circle, but they’re unnecessary. He mostly does it to let out some nervous energy, focus on something besides all of the zeros hanging up in the outfield behind him.
The batter steps into the box, Bourne’s center fielder and their number six hitter and Kurt realizes quickly that he’ll be pitching to the bottom of their lineup. It calms his racing heart, just a little, just enough that his hands stop shaking when he grabs onto the baseball in his glove. He wraps his hand around the leather, fingers running over the red stitching, and looks in to see Blaine calling for a fastball, up and in.
It’s not even a challenge, striking this guy out. He swings through the first two pitches, never even close to making contact, and his bat stays firmly on his shoulder when Kurt drops in a curveball at his knees for strike three. The crowd cheers, but Kurt can barely hear them over the ringing in his ears.
He gets to two balls on the next batter, the closest he ever gets to a full count, before throwing a splitter into the dirt, the hitter rolling it over and weakly grounding it to Noah Puckerman at third base. Puck throws it easily across the field and the ball beats the runner to first base by five steps.
“One more out," repeats on a loop in Kurt’s head, over and over. One more out, that’s all he needs. The second baseman for Bourne is walking to the plate and Kurt looks in at Blaine, needs to focus in on something to calm him down. He feels dizzy and lightheaded, like he can’t take in enough air to fill is lungs. But then Blaine takes his mask off, rests it on the top of his head, and mouths, "just breathe”. So Kurt does.
The crowd is standing the entire time, chanting and cheering his name. But Kurt blocks everything else out, the edges of his vision blurring and the only thing in focus is Blaine’s catcher’s mitt. He taps signs quickly against his inner thigh, Kurt recognizing his call for a change up and not even considering shaking him off.
Kurt throws the ball in and the batter makes solid contact, sending the ball skidding down the third base line. Kurt sucks in a breath and whips around. The ball shoots passed him, passed Puck at third base and into the outfield. Kurt’s shoulders drop because that was it. He’d been close, so close, and he squeezes his eyes shut.
But the umpire along third base throws his hands up in the air and shouts, “foul ball!"
Relief washes over him and he watches as one of the young bat boys runs over to retrieve the foul ball. It’s not over and his heart is racing, feels as though it might beat out of his chest entirely. He turns around to look back in at Blaine, needing that connection to settle him down. Blaine looks Kurt right in the eyes, motions both of his hands downwards as if to say, relax. You’ve got this.
Kurt nods and catches the ball when Blaine throws it out to him, pacing back and forth on the mound while the batter takes a few practice swings. He knows what Blaine’s going to call for before he even drops down the sign, curveball, and Kurt already has the ball gripped in his hands when he turns back to home plate.
Kurt’s curveball is big and looping, starting at the batter’s eyes before quickly dropping to his toes. The batter has no chance, no one does against Kurt tonight, and he misses the ball by a foot when he swings his bat. Kurt sees Blaine pump his fist, one more strike, before tossing the ball back to Kurt.
Kurt takes a deep breath, calms himself down as much as he can. He kicks his leg, falls back before moving forward, putting everything he has into the pitch. Time slows down and the crowd blurs around him, nothing in focus except the baseball and Blaine. He watches as the ball spins towards home plate and he swears he can see every red stitch spinning in the air. The ball reaches the batter and he swings through, connecting with nothing, the ball landing squarely in Blaine’s glove.
It’s mostly shock that Kurt feels, his feet frozen to the pitcher’s mound. His mouth drops open and in the time it takes him to blink, Blaine is crashing into him, arms wrapped around Kurt’s shoulders and pulling him in tight. Kurt loses his balance from the force of the hug and they fall to the ground, Kurt on his back and Blaine landing on top of him.
There’s only a few seconds when it’s just the two of them, Blaine’s helmet and mask discarded somewhere along the line. The crowd and their teammates disappear and it’s only them. Blaine’s knees are straddling Kurt’s thighs, his hands gripping onto Kurt’s shoulders, shaking him slightly. He bends down and puts their foreheads together, noses bumping, and whispers, "Kurt. You did it."
And then the moment is over when he feels the rest of the team pig pile on top of them, Kurt getting his breath knocked out of him under the added weight. It feels amazing, though, Blaine clinging to him and laughing, repeating Kurt’s name over and over into his neck.
There will be interviews after this. Talking to the local Cape Cod newspapers, and maybe even a reporter will be sent down from Boston, about how it feels, answering the same questions again and again. Kurt will laugh and trip over his words, blush red and talk about luck and the defense of his teammates in the field. The reporters will ask him to put into words what he was feeling, what he was thinking up on the mound after the twenty-seventh out was made, but he won’t be able to. All he’ll be able to get across with any sort of clarity is, “I really just owe this is my catcher, Blaine Anderson. He called such an amazing game, kept me calm when I needed it. All I did was throw the pitches."
And when he gets home after pitching one night, a week or so after the perfect game, his interview with the Boston Globe will be framed and sitting by his bedside, a Post It note stuck to the side and covered in Blaine’s neat handwriting.