Day 090: Saturday 15th December, 2012
Turning Tides (California)

"Stop right there, mister."

"Okay..."

"If you get your way in Vegas, I get mine in California. And I vote Fight Club."



"Birds flying high, you know how I feel."

April (7:54am) – Just saw the news! Took you guys long enough ;)

"It's been a long time coming, I know..."

"Sun in the sky, you know how I feel."

Marcie (9:12am) – Never has one of those relationship status updates been a more welcome sight. Finally!

"Yes, Blaine and I are official."

"Breeze drifting on by, you know how I feel."

Finn (11:33am) – Congrats, little brother.

"I love him, and he loves me..."

"It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me..."

Dad (1:40pm) – About time, boys. Be happy.

"And we're happy."

"And I'm feeling—"



"I don't understand," Kurt said as they drew closer to the neon-lit archway beckoning them onto Santa Monica Pier.

"What?"

"I don't get it. Why isn't it cold?"

"Sweetheart, this is cold," Blaine said, wrapping an arm around his waist and shooting him an easy smile.

"We come from Brunswick," Kurt said. "It's December. This is not cold."

"Okay, you win," Blaine said, chuckling and pulling him in closer, away from the crowds milling around the sidewalk, some leaving the pier and some headed down the same incline. After a moment, he asked, "Isn't it kind of strange suddenly being around this many people all at once?"

"Sort of," Kurt said, casting his eyes around the pier and half-attempting to separate the snowbirds and tourists from the locals.

"Does it feel good, though? Getting out of the R.V. for a few days?"

Kurt considered the question at length and took a deep, measured breath. Yeah, freedom is mine, and you know how I feel...

They were staying at Cooper's ostentatious, palatial home on Georgina Avenue while he was in New York on business. While Kurt was happy about the simple prospect of staying still, it was the rest of it that left him almost ill at ease.

Wilfully falling into love with Blaine had, after choking down that jagged pill of fear, been about as easy as falling into bed with him. Aside from Kurt's feelings finally being out in the open, nothing had really changed between them. Kurt still spent his days quietly awed of how far they had come, all the things they had done together, and what they were building. Blaine still peppered their days with affectionate glances, kisses that made Kurt's breath hitch in his chest, and touches that were somehow both assured and tentative. They still drove, and flirted, and bantered, and moved with arcane knowledge around one another. Nothing was different, yet everything was.

They were happy, but still the ground moved beneath them. He felt over-saturated; filled up and wrung out over and over. He couldn't settle inside the love until things were certain, until what happens on the road trip stays on the road trip was a distant, laughable memory.

And the crux of the matter: they were doing all of it under the laser-focused gazes of everyone they knew.

"Well, I don't intend on setting foot back inside until we have to," he finally answered; leaving it all between the messy sheets and lived-in surroundings of the R.V. was a balm.

"Aw, sweetheart, you don't like my digs? I'm wounded," Blaine declared, palm to his heart and a comical look of shock on his face.

Kurt smiled back weakly but didn't hold Blaine's gaze, focusing instead on the sea of faces and bodies around them as they turned into Pacific Park, lights flashing brightly under the dark sky and music playing from somewhere by the Ferris wheel.

"Hey," Blaine murmured. "What's up?"

"Nothing, I just..." Kurt trailed off, shaking his head before finally meeting Blaine's eyes and saying, "We went public."

"We did," Blaine said cautiously. "Should we not have?"

Kurt paused, thinking back to the video diary he'd filmed that morning; an answer to all of the questions and messages he'd received in response to his cryptic, one-line text entry the previous night. Smiling as Feeling Good played from the living area, Blaine oblivious while he did the dishes from their overindulgent breakfast in bed, Kurt had let it chase away the uncertainties niggling and churning in the back of his mind, every last what if haunting him with a renewed ferocity that he fought off with everything he had.

"No, I'm glad we did," he said. "It's just... You saw the texts."

"I did."

"All of the texts. There were a lot of texts. And April won't stop poking me on Facebook. I mean, who even pokes on Facebook anymore?"

"It's a lot of pressure," Blaine said, looking for the first time like he was feeling it, too.

"Oh, thank god," he groaned, unable to suppress the urge to turn and kiss him; he barely even cared that they were surrounded by people. Blaine's lips still tasted of the lemon sorbet they'd shared after dinner, feeding each other with sundae spoons at the bar in Cooper's kitchen.

When he pulled away, Blaine asked, "Did you think you were the only one feeling it?"

"Yeah, actually."

"Why?"

"Because..." Kurt trailed off, running his fingers over the front of the thick cable knit cardigan Blaine wore, the one he'd nabbed from Kurt's side of the closet like it was nothing. "Do you understand why I fought against it all for so long?"

"Of course I do," Blaine said. "I was scared, too."

Kurt shook his head, eyebrows knitting together. "But you always seemed so sure..."

"Come on," Blaine said quietly, taking his hand and pulling him over to an empty bench opposite the ticket booth. When Kurt sat down, his hand clasped between both of Blaine's own, the wood was still warm from its last occupants. "I was sure of how I felt, that much is true. But sure of what you'd do? Honestly, I've never been less sure."

"So how did you... In Wyoming, you just—"

"I was sick of biting my tongue every time I wanted to say it. I was still terrified of ruining us and what we had, but I couldn't keep pretending. And that fucking song..."

"That fucking song," Kurt echoed, shaking his head.

"What about you?" Blaine asked.

"I've never been so scared in all my life. Still am, a little bit."

"Why?"

"It was always more than just—just putting us and our friendship in jeopardy. It was..." Kurt paused, averting his eyes and forcing himself to confront his instinct to run with his need to talk. "I was scared that you'd just leave again."

Blaine's grip on his hands tightened. "Kurt, I wouldn't—"

"Because I honestly think that I'd lose it if you did," he interrupted, words flowing irrepressibly now that he'd started. "It took me this long to trust you again, Blaine, and now there's all these people who want to know everything and all I want to know is that... That I'll still have something to tell them when we get home."

A moment passed where Blaine did nothing more than stare at him, a muscle working in his jaw. "You've needed to say that to me for a while, haven't you?" At Kurt's sheepish nod, he shifted closer and said, "Kurt, I'm not... I'm not going home. Home's been right in front of me for nearly seventeen years. It just took me a while to figure it out."

Kurt shook his head in near disbelief, his breath leaving his body in a shaky release that had been building up ever since Blaine had returned from London. His eyes stung and he blinked rapidly, and even as he looked away, Blaine ducked into his eyeline.

"Sweetheart, I'm gonna fix this," he said, his tone solemn. "I've got you, remember?"

And there it was: I've got you. Three more little words in addition to the three that had had Kurt tongue-tied for so long, three more little words that encapsulated how much Blaine had done for him.

"You do, don't you?" he said, more a slightly awed statement than a question.

Blaine rolled his eyes and tucked two fingers beneath Kurt's chin, gently guiding his gaze upward. Looking at him with an expression so painfully earnest and full of tenderness that Kurt thought he might unravel, he said, "Always."

"I love you," Kurt whispered on a punch of breath, pitching forward to wrap his arms around Blaine's shoulders and pull him close. Blaine's fingers had still been tucked beneath his chin and his arm was caught between them; his laugh was muffled against Kurt's shoulder until they broke apart.

"I love you, too," Blaine said, reaching down for Kurt's hand and linking their fingers. "Now, come on. We've got a first date to finish."

Kurt wanted to roll his eyes and poke fun at the idea that this was a first date as they got in line for tickets, but as he considered the notion, he realized that it was exactly how they had spent their day—albeit a little closer than most first dates, given that they'd made out in the back of Cooper's home movie theater for most of Fight Club.

Nevertheless, after they'd bought enough tickets to get them on each ride at least once, he said, "I'm not sure this qualifies as a first date."

"Dinner and a movie; it totally qualifies," Blaine replied, swinging their joined hands between them as they set off toward the Ferris wheel.

"Ah, but we did it backwards," Kurt said.

"What haven't we done backwards?" Blaine pointed out, and Kurt smiled despite himself. "You know, I never realize how much I miss California until I come back."

"You finally got me here."

"And I can finally go on the Ferris wheel."

"You—what?" Kurt asked, perplexed. "You've visited Coop about a million times and you've never been here?"

"Of course I have," Blaine said. "But I was saving the Ferris wheel for you."

OneRepublic's Secrets was playing as they joined the back of the short line beneath the giant wheel and Kurt smiled to himself, thinking back to all the years they'd spent going to the annual bazaar at St John's in Brunswick. They would hold hands until they got to the top of the wheel, where they would each tell a secret. At twelve, it had been, "I ate the last cupcake, the one you were saving." At fifteen, it had been, "I kinda have a crush on Drake." At twenty-one, Kurt had said, "I missed you," instead of, "Holding your hand feels strange and different and I can't figure out why."

Once they were seated and the guardrail was settled across their laps, Kurt shifted close to Blaine and was reaching for his hand when Blaine's cell rang, blaring at top volume.

"I thought I'd set it to vibrate," Blaine said apologetically as he pulled it out. His brow furrowed as he looked at the screen. "It's Coop. Do you mind if I..."

Kurt waved him off with a smile, turning his attention to the views out over the bay as they rose into the air, hundreds of lights sparkling over the water. He rested his head on Blaine's shoulder and sighed contentedly, tuning out everything save for his newfound sense of peace. It all seemed to be falling into place—finally, finally, finally—and that torn seam of their fabric was already re-sewn, the stitches doubled and trebled by the last three months; not mended by a long goodbye but by a belated hello.

"Yes, Coop, we got the video message. I still don't get why you can't just text me like a normal person..."

He felt Blaine's fingers threading through his own as they inched higher, and considered what he would say when they got to the top. He'd already given away all of his secrets—aside from his cornbread recipe, of course; that would go with him to the grave. Maybe, if Blaine hadn't come clean in Wyoming and Kurt hadn't done the same in Arizona, they would have had matching confessions at the top. Maybe, if Blaine had never gone to London and nothing had changed between them, Kurt would be confessing that he was the one moving around the magnets on the fridge and Leona was not, in fact, haunted. Maybe, if their almost-kiss hadn't been interrupted and they'd both been brave much sooner, Kurt's secret would be that he was happy about marriage equality in Maine for more than one reason.

"No, that's—that's amazing, Coop! Okay, I'll... Yeah. Yeah, I'll talk to Kurt and let you know."

At the sound of his name, Kurt sat upright in his seat. He looked at Blaine, neon colors playing across his face as he offered Kurt a tight smile and hung up.

"What's your secret?" he asked, squeezing Kurt's hand.

"I don't have any left."

"Looks like we need a new tradition, then."

"What did Coop say?" Kurt prompted after a moment of silence had passed, Blaine glancing down at the park from their vantage point at the top of the wheel.

"That movie he's just optioned, it..." Blaine trailed off, pulling his hand from Kurt's and scratching at the back of his neck. "He wants us both to come out here to work on it. First assistant director and director of photography."

"I—what?" Kurt spluttered. "But we just graduated."

"I guess when he said fresh talent, he meant the crew as well as the cast."

This is it, Kurt thought immediately, his mind suddenly awash in a new kind of hope. He needed a plan, something concrete that didn't ebb and flow like the neverending stream of white lines disappearing beneath the R.V. He needed the certainty, to know that there was something more for them after they returned to Maine on the same itchy feet with which they'd left. This is what we've been waiting for.

He looked over at Blaine with wide eyes, reaching for his hand and finding a loose fist into which he burrowed his fingers, needing a grounding touch to keep from letting the heady drama of Cooper's announcement get to him.

"But you're going to New York," Kurt said quietly, stomach dropping in a way that had nothing to do with the Ferris wheel's soft lurch downward. "I mean... Would you think about it?"

"Do you want to do it?"

No more secrets. "Yes."

"What if..." Blaine shifted uncomfortably in his seat for a moment. "What if I told that I don't know which one I want more?"

"I'd say that's okay."

"What if I told you that I'm scared I'll fail, whichever one I pick?"

"I'd say that's okay, too. We can't stop each other from failing, but we can pick each other up when we do. You've got me, and I've got you, right?"

Blaine smiled at that. "I think I want to, but... It's big. Can you give me some time?"

"Of course, silly," Kurt said, leaning over and pressing his forehead to Blaine's temple. For longer than he cared to remember, he had been picking the lock of his own joy, slowly feeling for the tumblers and gradually letting them click into place. Blaine was the only man who had ever given him joy without that oft-expected bite of sorrow—he could have all the time he wanted.

They were quiet for a while after that, Blaine obviously deep in thought about the choice before him. They didn't speak again until after Kurt had ducked out of the line for the West Coaster, leaving Blaine holding their tickets with a puzzled expression, to examine a rack of key chains more closely. He selected one carefully, not even caring about the inflated price as he paid, and took it back to Blaine, pressing it into his palm.

Blaine examined it closely, eyes trained on the heavy pewter outline of the United States, one heart punched into New York and the other into California, a dotted line connecting them.

"Whatever you decide," Kurt said simply.

He yelped as Blaine wrapped an arm around his waist and dipped him, crushing their lips together in a kiss that Kurt felt in his toes.

"I love you so much," he whispered, and as Blaine straightened, pulled them back upright and silently stepped away with a small smile, all Kurt could dazedly think was, I am Jack's heart, grown three sizes bigger.



Distance: 13,157 miles