CHAPTER 17

The walk to Coach Sylvester’s office is short and silent, and all too soon, Kurt’s standing by the door. It’s funny, how he’s more afraid of this conversation than he’d been for what he’d just done in Glee. Instinctively, he knows why – Coach is known for her sharp tongue and even though the new rules had stopped her offensive speeches, her expressions are still just as cutting. Kurt can’t be sure what to expect from her now, but scathing remarks are high on the list of possibilities.

A small hand touches Kurt’s shoulder as he hesitates, and he breathes deeper, Quinn’s comforting presence behind him. He turns to her.

“Ready?”

“Yes.”

Kurt raises his hand and knocks on the half-open door. “Coach, can we talk to you?”

Sue Sylvester is sitting behind her desk with an unreadable expression, flipping through a journal, and it does nothing to reassure Kurt. Neither does her tone, dry and quipped.

“I’m not interested in the emotional drama of my cheerios. The only thing I want to know is how it will affect my team. So tell me: are you two going to be at each other’s throats now?”

“No.” They answer in unison.

“Good. That’s all I needed, I don’t care who you date now. Go and start the warm up.”

Blaine is pacing around the kitchen with a deep frown on his face, waiting for Kurt to pour himself a cup of coffee and settle on a chair. When he faces Kurt at last, he seems almost desperate.

“Please tell me you didn’t do it because of what I said about you and Quinn.”

He looks so miserable that Kurt wants to hug him, to wipe this expression off his face. But the mere thought of hugging leads his mind where he definitely doesn’t want it to go, especially now that he’s single, and alone in a house with a boy he’s pretty sure he’s falling in love with. So he just reassures him with words instead.

“No, I did it because I decided this is what I need. For myself. You only gave me the impulse I needed to do it.”

Blaine releases a shaky breath, as if he’d held it for a long time. “Oh thank god. I was afraid I pushed you, and I could never, ever forgive myself if I did, if you did this when you weren’t ready. But… I was so proud of you today, Kurt!” Excitement is shining in his eyes now. “And your voice! How could you have hidden such a thing for so long! I mean, a countertenor? Do you know how rare that is?”

Kurt smiles, feeling a blush creep on his cheeks. “I know.”

“Wait till my mom hears about it – you won’t be able to avoid presentation, I’m afraid.”

“It’s okay.” It’s more than okay. The thought that he can actually sing outside his empty house now, practice in front of others and exercise his voice, makes him practically giddy. “I love singing, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Oh, good. Because I want to hear so much more! I want you to duet with me at last, I want you to sing Broadway classics – I mean, Kurt, that song!” Blaine is so genuinely happy for him, so bubbly, that Kurt belts out bits of several Broadway songs just to tease him, which spurs Blaine to join in, and oh boy, do their voices sound good together. By the time they stop laughing and humming and singing, it’s dark outside and Blaine’s parents are about to come home, so they retreat to his bedroom instead, where they settle – Blaine on the bed, Kurt in the armchair opposite – to talk at last.

“So when did you and Quinn break up?”

Kurt blushes; he knows how it’s gonna sound. “The day after we argued – hey, but no, don’t give me that face. You didn’t push me. You just made me think and I realized that you were right, that I may be hurting Quinn. So I decided to talk to her. To be honest.”

“And?” Blaine’s face expresses so much worry.

“And she hugged me. She said she thought I may be. Gay, I mean. It turned out she wanted to talk to me too; about Sam. She fell for him and wanted to give it a chance. So we decided to go our separate ways, but since she really wanted to be the prom queen, we agreed to keep it silent until then. See, it turned out okay in the end – she’s still my greatest supporter. Well, apart from my dad, I think.”

Blaine’s eyes widen even more. “You came out to your dad? Kurt, that’s amazing!”

“Yeah, that night after prom. And you were right, he was wonderful.”

Blaine’s face falls a little despite the happiness. “Oh god, Kurt, I’m so sorry – you had such an important weekend and I wasn’t there to support you. I’m a crappy friend.”

“It’s okay. You needed some time alone. And I was fine – I actually learned a bit about myself in the process.”

“But you needed me, needed the support, and I switched my phone off like an offended kid with a temper tantrum.” He shakes his head, disappointed.

Kurt glances at him curiously. “Actually, I was wondering – why did you need time away from me? Did I say or do something wrong?”

Blaine shakes his head vehemently. “No, of course not! It’s just… I may have um… imagined too much and then I saw you with Quinn and – Sorry, no, it was stupid, just… I just care about you, Kurt. I don’t want to screw this up, between us, and I have no idea what I’m doing.”

It sounds like Blaine doesn’t just mean their friendship. But that’s probably just Kurt’s imagination, right?

The following week seems surreal to Kurt in so many different ways, the little changes both insignificant and exhilarating. He sits at the Glee table at lunch twice and the world doesn’t end. He talks with Blaine between classes a few times, and even sits next to him in Glee, and no one really cares – as long as he sticks with the cheerios at least half the time and doesn’t do anything grossly out of character. And then there’s the singing – the whole new world of songs he can do in Glee and, best of all, the solo. The third, surprise song for their Nationals list – completely different from the other two. Just Kurt, with a group of dancers, in Le Jazz Hot. It’s going to be incredible.

But what Kurt loves most is the way Blaine is letting his guard down around him now, revealing bits and facets of himself that Kurt never knew existed. Like how tactile he is, for example.

The first time Blaine touches Kurt’s knee, while talking animatedly about his summer job at Six Flags last year, Kurt almost jumps up, surprised. But very soon, he grows to like all the little touches that are essential part of Blaine being completely at ease around him now.

And then, there’s something new in the way they talk, too. And it isn’t just the fact that they launch into long discussions about fashion and music or debates about which actor is the hottest – even though Kurt immensely enjoys the fact that he has someone to talk about these things with at last. It’s also all the little things that make his heart beat faster as they sit in the coffee house trying to keep the surprisingly stifling May heat at bay, or bake muffins together on a Sunday morning, a new tradition of theirs. Things that Blaine just says out of the blue, that keep Kurt reeling and stunned for days afterwards.

“Kurt, that week when we were supposed to express ourselves in Glee, and you refused to sing – what would you have sung if you could be honest about yourself then? I’ve been wondering.”

Kurt can feel his eyebrows raise of their own accord. “You remember that?”

Blaine snorts, slightly bashful. “Of course I remember. The most beautiful boy I’ve ever met, and completely inaccessible, comes to Glee – it’s kind of impossible not to focus on you, you know?” Seeing Kurt blush furiously, he smiles. “So, what would the song be?”

Another time it’s, “I wish I’d have stayed at prom that little bit longer, enough to know about you and Quinn then.”

“What would you have done?” Kurt asks, a little breathless.

“I’d have sat with you to keep you company, or convinced you to sneak out and go for coffee instead. Or… I’d have danced with you, if you wanted.” He says the last bit in a quiet voice that makes Kurt wonder in awe.

“But Blaine… after Sadie Hawkins –“

“For you, I would.”

It makes Kurt’s heart ache in that delicious way he’d never knew before Blaine. But neither of them seems ready to do anything with it yet.

New York and Nationals are everything Kurt has dreamed of.

They finish in fourth place, so close to the podium, but Kurt can’t find it in himself to sulk the way Rachel does. The trip to New York is full to the brim of firsts and dreams coming true. It’s his first time travelling by plane and sleeping in a hotel, and the fact that they can only afford two hotel rooms and he ends up bunking with Blaine doesn’t present one bit of a problem. (And when Kurt wakes up in Blaine’s arms in the middle of the night again, and tries to move away, a strong arm pulls him closer and a sleep-rough voice whispers “Mm, no, come here. I like you cuddling like this.”) He gets to spend every spare moment walking through the crowded streets of New York and dreaming about coming back here a year from now, to study.

The best part is having his friend by his side, just as excited about everything, even when Kurt wakes him up at five in the morning after the post-almost-winning party to see some more of the city before they go back to Lima. Blaine doesn’t complain – he just gets dressed quickly and they sneak out.

Morning chill in the air, they grab coffee and bagels to eat at Tiffany’s, watching with sleepy eyes as the city that never sleeps stretches for the busy morning, and then they decide that Central Park is a good place to finish their New York adventure.

And it’s there, with morning sun filtering through the thick canopy of leaves, with the happy, sated feeling in his heart and his gut, with the promise of coming back here to live free and open, when Kurt feels something in him switch and settle just right.

And in that lazy morning silence, when Blaine’s hand brushes against his, Kurt simply takes it and holds on. Blaine looks at him and smiles, and he smiles back.

They don’t let go.

Kurt doesn’t know what will come next year. But for now, there’s summer before them; time to talk and sing and spend endless hours together, not caring about school or popularity, or curious eyes. Time to figure out what it is between them; what they want. Time to be who they are: two boys in love.

THE END