He did have to admit that Blaine's car was a little nicer than his own, but not by much. He didn't drive his father's pickup truck or anything.

It did make it easier to read the directions, though; it was difficult enough to try to make out the words in the dim pools of light coming from occasional porch lights when he was reading his own handwriting. Blaine probably wouldn't have been able to discern any of it.

"Make a left up here," he instructed, pointing to the stop sign ahead.

"You're sure?" Blaine asked skeptically.

Kurt peered again at the paper. That did say left, right? Had he skipped a line? He didn't think so. "Yes," he stated with more confidence than he really felt.

"Where are we going?"

It was roughly the hundredth time Blaine had asked that question since they'd gotten into the car. Kurt wasn't dumb enough to tell him, not when Blaine was the one in the driver's seat and had the power to swiftly end this...outing.

He kept trying not to refer to it as a date, even in his mind. If he did that, he would start getting his hopes up or set Blaine's panic instinct off again, and those were the last things he wanted. Even though Blaine hadn't bolted when he'd called it a date earlier in the week, everything still felt so tenuous, as if the entire house of cards would collapse at any moment. If he could at least keep his expectations low, that might help avoid the feeling that his entire future had been crushed when Blaine fled again.

He wanted it to work. He wanted so badly to have all the things he'd been wanting for months now, and certainly since January. But once bitten, twice shy, was a better way to go...even as much as the vivid images of a sweet courtship kept playing unwillingly in his mind.

"It's a surprise," he stated for the hundredth time, noting that Blaine did not seem in the least reassured by that answer. If anything he appeared more on-edge.

"This isn't somewhere people can-"

"Blaine," Kurt cut him off. "Do you trust me?"

Blaine glanced over at him, and while Kurt couldn't see his face all that well in the dim light, Blaine's voice was sincere. Soft. A little more relaxed than Kurt had heard all evening as he stated with wholehearted confirmation, "Yes."

"Then let it be a surprise," Kurt replied. Blaine sighed, but he nodded and continued dutifully down the road. "I think we take a right over there."

"Where on earth did you get these directions?"

"It's a place Sam's been before," he stated.

"You're getting directions from a guy who barely knows his right from his left?" Blaine asked in dismay.

"He does," Kurt protested. "Finn might not, but Sam does. Even if he's not the best dancer in the world...and does sometimes start on the wrong foot during step-touches...but he's a lot smarter than people realize." Kinder, too; Kurt wasn't sure if people knew that about Sam. He had a kind of gentle, quiet sweetness to him and was so genuine. Maybe Sam would understand if he knew about...all of this, Kurt thought.

Blaine would kill him, he knew. Blaine, who was terrified of anyone knowing anything ever, would not take well to someone else at school knowing - certainly not a fellow Warbler. Not as close-knit as most of their group was and how quickly rumours spread.

"You're right," Blaine confirmed, nodding. "You really lucked out with him as a roommate. The boy I was stuck with my first year was obnoxious...and always around." He hesitated, then asked, "Has he asked about the other night?"

Kurt shook his head. "He asked if you were okay and I told him you were. Nothing further."

Blaine seemed to relax a miniscule amount. "Okay. And no one knows about..." He gestured awkwardly with his thumbs in the direction of the road, his hands still wrapped around the steering wheel.

"No," Kurt replied quietly. "No one knows." Blaine nodded again and seemed to relax a little bit more, and Kurt found himself wondering if this was just because their...whatever-it-was was new, or if Blaine would always be like this. Would he always be trying to hide himself, to hide them? Or was this merely the next step in getting Blaine comfortable with the idea?

It's still new, Kurt reminded himself. He just figured out he's not morally reprehensible a few days ago. He didn't back out. Give him time.

Time felt excrutiating, but he knew that time was less painful than Blaine running away again. So time would have to do.

In the distance, overhead lamps illuminated the gravel parking lot in front of a large movie screen. Blaine's hands gripped the wheel more tightly as he saw the twenty or so cars already parked there, the concessions stand, the attendant standing at the front of the driveway to collect money from the passengers of each vehicle. "Kurt-"

Kurt tried to ignore the panic in Blaine's voice as he calmly instructed, "Turn in here."

"A drive-in? The place that what we're doing is the most obvious? Only people on dates go to drive-ins, Kurt, friends who go to movies go somewhere that it doesn't look like they're just trying to neck in the backseat!"

Kurt wished things were simple enough that he could reply with a comment about the fact that he knew for a fact that Blaine wanted to do more than just neck him, but things weren't that uncomplicated. They were tense, terse, an agonizingly complex dance of each of them admitting just enough about wanting just a fraction of their real desires.

It's still new. Give him time.

"Have you ever been to a drive-in and paid a single bit of attention to any other car in the lot?" he asked skeptically. "God knows Finn and Quinn never did. Besides, you can't even see inside the cars, that's the point."

"How would you know?"

"Because I was busy trying to watch other people so I wouldn't have to watch my stepbrother making out with his girlfriend in the rearview mirror," Kurt replied dryly with a raise of his eyebrow. Those had been the worst Saturdays ever. He and Finn were close enough, they got along well enough he supposed, all things considered. But he had learned far more than he had ever wanted to know about what his stepbrother sounded like when he made out, or where on Quinn's neck she liked to be kissed, or about Finn's..."problem" when making out. Plus Finn had a tendency to almost kick out the back window with his long, uncoordinated legs. The movies were always terrible, and there were only so many weekends in a row he could stand to watch X the Unknown.

(The fact that that film had been a "consolation prize" on Finn's part because it was technically a foreign-made film was even more sad than the attempt at a plot..a plot that did not improve with repeated viewings.)

He half expected Blaine to make a U-turn in the middle of the road and attempt to get them back to school as quickly as possible. Instead, he saw Blaine draw in a deep breath and sit up a little straighter in his seat, turning into the driveway. He rolled down his window for the attendant - a small, ancient man who moved slowly to the car with his hand out. Blaine put on his most confident smile and wished the man good evening as he paid, as though he were trying to project such an air of nonchalance that the man might not wonder why two boys were seeing a drive-in movie by themselves.

Kurt doubted the man would seriously wonder that. For one thing, it was dark and the man didn't look like he had that sharp of eyesight. For another, friends went to movies all the time together. Their presence wasn't inherently suspicious, no matter what Blaine seemed to think.

Besides, he had a feeling about this. Ever since talking to Leroy at dinner and hearing about the idea of gathering in places where other homosexuals might be, he had been attempting to figure out how one found such a place - particularly in Ohio where it was hard to find anything outside the mainstream, ranging from a suitably luxurious Dior grey sweater that would fit his non-feminine frame, to a lighter-weight frock coat, to copies of French Vogue. But between the remote location, the film in question, the strange wording of the advertisement, the fact that the cars were all parked as far away from each other as they could get while still seeing the screen...something told him they might not be the only ones there tonight.

Blaine rolled up his window and pulled into a space near the back and far from prying eyes of other cars; Kurt considered protesting, but decided that if Blaine would feel more relaxed by the location then it would be worth the less-than-perfect view of the screen. Blaine tuned his radio to the frequency indicated on a nearby sign, and the sound of bubbly pre-show music filled the car. "So," he said slowly, turning to face Kurt. "Now what?"

"Now...we enjoy our evening out," Kurt replied simply.

"Yeah. I mean- yes, of course." Blaine seemed flustered; it was an unusual look on him and not an especially good one. "I'm sorry, I'm not very good at this."

"Don't worry about it," Kurt assured him gently. "I was honestly surprised when you even suggested it, the fact that we're here is enough for me."

It sounded desperate, he realized as he said it, and that almost made him cringe. It was true, of course, but something about it made him feel as though he was settling for any scrap of attention, any tidbit of time with Blaine as an alternative to something real and deep and fulfilling. The rest would come, he assured himself.

He wasn't sure when he started expecting everything from people; for so many years he had expected absolutely nothing. He had expected that Finn and his friends would be obnoxious to him, that the girls who spoke with him would shove him away as soon as a boy they wanted to like them was nearby, that everyone outside his family (well, his family and the Joneses, which were one in the same as far as he was concerned) would find him irritating at best, insignificant at worst. But since meeting Blaine - or maybe just since starting at Dalton, he wasn't sure since they did coincide so closely - he had started feeling like he was going to have everything in the world. Not just like one day he would escape his cesspit of a cowtown and move somewhere that would appreciate his talent and creativity instead of finding him obnoxiously eccentric; he had believed that for years. In the past few months, though, it had started feeling like not only was it going to happen, but like he deserved it. Like he was entitled to it and would get it and things would be good for him. Like people would be good.

It was terrifying - feeling that way and knowing how much it had hurt when Blaine had left. Knowing that Blaine could still easily just walk out the door and never speak to him again because he was so scared of all this. But no matter how hard he tried to wall himself off, how much he attempted to ratchet down expectations as he'd done for over a decade now so he could avoid disappointment, he found the fantasies still creeping up on him. He seized on every moment of perceived action - good or bad - on Blaine's part and tried to figure out what it meant, like reading tea leaves all over the boy's face.

He needed to stop, he knew that. But Blaine hadn't left, so that had to be a good sign right?

"I just wanted to spend time with you," he offered, which was true. "I thought at least this way we wouldn't have to keep looking over our shoulders like I knew you would if we went to a restaurant or were somewhere in town. No one can hear us in here. And look-" He gestured toward the other cars. "Can you even see who's in any of them?"

Blaine peered through the windshield at the other cars, trying as hard as he could to see who might be in there. After all, if he could see them, then that meant they could see him. He could take no chances with this, not as toxic as that reputation would be to both of them. Colleges would refuse to admit people known to be homosexuals, no one in their right mind would hire someone, if anyone saw them...anyone who could confirm later that they had been there together or doing anything - holding hands, let alone kissing, let alone any of the things he wanted to do whenever he was around Kurt...

He saw nothing. A few shadowy figures that looked vaguely like people, and occasionally from a particularly large silhouette of a bouffant it was possible to tell that the person was a woman, but even that was only in two of the cars. In the rest, the passengers either remained a mystery - assuming he could even see the car well enough to make a determination. Most of them were too far away.

"No," he confirmed, relaxing just a little. "No, I can't see any of them."

"For all you know, they could all be homosexuals," Kurt announced proudly, and the unspoken 'like us' in his voice made Blaine swallow hard. He was trying, but Kurt's pride at being different unnerved him more often than not. He adored how strong Kurt was, and he was incredibly envious of it; he wanted desperately to feel as little self-hatred as Kurt had to feel to parade around like he did. At the same time, though, it seemed foolhardy. Dangerous. He still wasn't sure Kurt understood the risks of any of this, the way the real world actually worked when it came to people like them. Three dozen men in a study didn't make a difference in the grand scheme of things, and even if he could concede that maybe - maybe - people like his father were...not entirely correct when it came to assessment of their health...it didn't mean anything was actually better.

He wanted to be like any other teenager. He wanted to be like everyone else, to use the drive-in for its intended purpose and not worry about people seeing him. He didn't want it to matter because he wanted to be able to say he was there with a girl and not be insulting his actual date - Kurt wasn't a girl and would resent him saying that. He wanted to be able to want to go out with a girl, to blend in and just be normal.

But absent the actual ability to change any of that (and god knew he'd tried), he didn't see the point in fighting it any longer. And Kurt looked so excited in the harsh glow over the overhead parking lot lamps, his face lit up as he grinned and half-bounced in his seat at the mere prospect of being in a place where there could be others like them and no one would ever know. Blaine didn't find it especially likely, but he wasn't going to burst Kurt's bubble. He wasn't going to tell Kurt that anyone else like them was smart enough to stay in where no one could potentially see them.

He liked seeing Kurt's smile too much to do that.

"I'm hungry, do you want to grab some food before it starts?" he offered.

"Sure." Kurt looked like it would be physically impossible for him to stop smiling.

Blaine had spent more time than he cared to think about watching Kurt - in Warbler meetings, in the dining hall, reading magazines and listening to music on his bed. But for some reason it had never occurred to him just how gracefully Kurt carried himself, how much strength and poise he had. In a dimly-lit parking lot, where they had no idea who else might be there, as he tried to keep himself consciously in-check to ensure that he didn't do something stupid like smile too brightly in Kurt's direction, Kurt didn't change. Blaine adjusted his gait slightly, held his gestures closer in to his body, glanced around but tried to look like he wasn't, all of it feeling unnatural and forced, but Kurt...Kurt walked tall across the gravel toward the glow of the concessions stand, head held high, as though he honestly couldn't be bothered by what anyone else might think when they saw him. When they saw them.

Blaine honestly couldn't imagine ever being that way. He couldn't imagine not caring if people guessed what he was. He couldn't imagine not caring whether he blended in or not - with the exception of the few minutes he was on-stage. The rest of the time...

He wondered what it would be like to be that way, to live like Kurt did - without fear. Without self-consciousness. Without the paranoia that plagued him the second he was in a room with Kurt and any other people. How amazing must that be, not a single voice of doubt whispering in his ear that everyone must know by now how sick he was and the only way to fix it was to be as normal as humanly possible. Not the echoes of his father speaking in even tones about the importance of blending in so people would respect him.

Kurt strutted through the world like he knew for certain he deserved that kind of respect, and anyone who didn't give it willingly did so at their peril.

Kurt took his place in line, hand coming to rest on his hip as he waited with a bored expression that softened into a grin as Blaine took his place beside him. They didn't touch, but it still felt alarmingly intimate as Blaine wondered if anyone else would notice the look that passed between them. No one appeared to, everyone too involved with their own groups of friends to notice. He didn't see any of the usual teenage couples, which was strange - no boys and girls waiting with one another and trying to keep from pawing each other outside their cars. But then, when was the last time he'd been to one of these places? Blaine asked himself. Mostly he just heard tell from the other guys - when a group of them would go out, they almost always went to the indoor theater in town. If half of Jeff and Nick's stories were to be believed, the couples that were really getting into things didn't even bother leaving their cars long enough to get snacks.

They each ordered their provisions, paying separately, and carried them back toward the car. "I just don't understand why they can't have food options that aren't soaked in grease," Kurt stated, eyeing Blaine's burger and fries suspiciously then casting a forlorn look at his own tray which held only a pop and small bag of popcorn.

"It's fast food, silly," Blaine teased.

"Yes, but plenty of things can be made quickly without being disgusting. I mean, how long does it take to make a side salad? Really."

There was a quiet "Mmhmm" of agreement from behind them, and Blaine froze. Kurt turned quickly to the source of the sound and saw two men carrying their own trays toward a car a few rows ahead of Blaine's. Probably in their late 20s, dressed in cuffed jeans with loafers and plaid shirts that showed off their biceps.

None of the four said anything, but there was a strange dance that went on - a series of expressions. Blaine watched, terrified, as one man glanced at the other, quirked an eyebrow and smiled, then glanced at Kurt. Kurt flushed and cast a sideways look at Blaine with an excited grin. The second man gave them both a knowing look and nodded to them as he led the first man toward their car. The entire exchange took less than a few moments but left Blaine feeling like a pile of quivering nerves and left Kurt practically bouncing out of his expensive shoes.

"I told you," he hissed excitedly as he and Blaine made their way to the car. "Didn't I?"

No one had needed to say anything - it was obvious what they all were, and that they all knew what they all were. And that felt incredible.

As Kurt got into the car, he found himself staring out the front windshield, watching every person and group as they made their way back and forth between cars and concessions and the restroom. There were by far more men than women, often in pairs but not always; one had an entire group that looked indistinguishable from any group of Dalton boys but felt different somehow. He wondered if maybe this was the kind of place Leroy had meant, if maybe he really had found it.

He wondered mostly if it would still be like this next week when the movie was different. He hoped so - the idea sent a shiver of excitement through him. They could have a usual place: their place, like any other couple. They could come here every Friday and watch movies and not have to be so afraid. Maybe in time they could even talk to some of the other people. He doubted that only because no one seemed to really speak to anyone except whomever they had come with, but maybe he was just missing it.

The possibilities seemed endless.

The lights dimmed, and they ate silently through the pre-show cartoons, both more fascinated by the prospect of people-watching than by the animated characters performing slapstick comedy. Blaine spoke first.

"Do you think they're really..."

"Yes," Kurt replied with absolute conviction.

"But they seemed so..." normal. They dressed like Rock Hudson and half the boys in that group over there looked like they could be Warblers. Not one shuffled through the parking lot like the patients in the asylum, but they didn't rampantly attack one another either as he'd been led to believe happened in unmedicated cases. None of them appeared in the least bit sick. Many of them looked happy, even - not as happy as Kurt, who was still practically vibrating with excitement...he doubted anyone else could be that happy...but happy enough. "What do you think happens to them when they leave here?" he asked quietly, unable to imagine them moving freely anywhere else in the world. After all, he would have seen them. He would have seen them and known not to be quite so afraid. Other people would see them, and would either embrace them or arrest them and he'd never heard of either one, so clearly that meant they had to all go somewhere, right?

"The same thing that happens to you, I suppose," Kurt replied thoughtfully after a moment. Blaine started to protest that whatever happened to one of them happened to both, but Kurt was right; Blaine went back to appearing as normal as possible, to blending in, and Kurt kept walking down the hall with his head held high and a strut in his step no matter what people might say about him.

He wondered who else was like him that he'd never known or noticed before. Kurt had been easy to pick out, despite his feelings at one point that Kurt must not be sick because he was far too happy and could actually speak to his father. But if everyone else was more like he was, and if no one knew about him, then what did that mean for...

"Y- You said Sam told you about this place?"

"Yeah, why?" Kurt asked, then he started laughing as he realized what Blaine was asking. "Sam's not a homosexual, Blaine, don't be ridiculous. They play bad science fiction movies out here on Sundays and he comes here for a little escape when things get bad. I found out about this movie from an ad, he just told me how to get here."

"So which movie is it?" he asked as the cartoon ended.

Kurt gave a little sly smile as he said, "You'll see."

The main title music was familiar as the MGM lion roared proudly on the studio card. Blaine's eyes widened and he turned to stare at Kurt. "You-...this is where you-"

"You told me it was your favourite," he stated, then studied Blaine's face in the flickering light from the screen. "It's okay, right?" he checked, because Blaine didn't seem happy. He seemed surprised more than anything, which Kurt supposed was a good thing but wasn't exactly the response he'd been going for.

"Yes," Blaine replied quietly, a beaming, genuine smile spreading slowly across his face. "Yes, Kurt, it's more than okay. I just had no idea anywhere around here even played it regularly. There were a couple places last summer for the twentieth anniversary, but I thought I'd have to wait another five years for theaters to start playing it again."

"Well then, Blaine Anderson, today is your lucky day," Kurt smiled, swishing a little in his seat as he got more comfortable. He watched Blaine, still sitting upright with impeccable posture, watch the film with a type of rapt fascination usually reserved for children watching the film for the first time. There was an innocence to him like this, a genuine openness that Kurt had only ever seen before when Blaine sang...only this was less theatrical. It was quiet and almost exposed, and he wasn't sure if it was the way the screen backlit Blaine's - his boyfriend's - features so that Kurt could practically see every distinct eyelash, or the way Blaine silently mouthed along with the words of the first scene, but the entire moment felt so delicate and beautiful that Kurt couldn't bring himself to look away to watch the movie itself.

What he was looking at was far more interesting than gingham dresses and dogs in picnic baskets.

"I don't care what anyone says," Blaine said quietly, his eyes still straight ahead on the screen as he watched Dorothy watch the clouds part while Toto sat with his paw just barely up, clearly at the command of his off-screen trainer. "No one else can sing this like she can." He hesitated a moment, then turned to glance at Kurt and admitted softly, "But you come darn close." As Kurt blushed, Blaine added in a bashful whisper, "I couldn't take my eyes off you. I tried to chalk it up to loving the song, but I think that was always a lie. It was you."

Kurt's eyes widened at Blaine's admission. He hadn't noticed - he'd been so focused on trying to nail the audition, to get into the group so he could spend more time around Blaine that he hadn't even seen that particular clue? Not that he had known what it meant then anyway, he reminded himself. He hadn't figured that part out until Blaine and then Rachel told him at the bar in October. But a part of him did wonder how much things would have been different if he'd noticed then. Would he have known enough to start pursuing Blaine earlier? Or would he have been so perplexed that it would have been nothing more than a deeper-than-deep friendship?

Or would he have let Blaine's fear halt them both? Probably the last option, if the previous few weeks were any indication. Had he not known all he knew, he would have let Blaine run away, and then where would they be?

He didn't know how to say that, though, so he settled for something simpler. Safer, though potentially personally embarrassing.

"I used to pretend to be Miss Gulch," he stated.

Blaine stared at him, looking skeptically amused. "Really?"

Kurt nodded. "When I was little, I would ride my bike up and down the sidewalk and hum the song like that. My dad thought I had lost my mind." He smiled at the memory. The mental image that produced made Blaine smile as he thought of little tiny Kurt pedaling up and down the block, reenacting one of the classic movie villains, not even caring that the other kids must have thought he was ridiculous.

So Kurt had always been fearless; did that mean it was too late for him?

He drew in a deep breath and reached over to take Kurt's hand.

They watched the next few scenes in near-silence as Blaine tried not to think about how much the conman reminded him of his father - as Professor Marvel or as the Wizard, either one - and they laughed at the happy men in the rowboat in the twister ("Where exactly is there a lake in Kansas the right size for that boat? Did you see the shots of the farm? No water in sight.") and wondered why precisely no one could hear her trying to get into the storm cellar. As the house landed, he could practically feel Kurt radiating with excited energy. "What is it?"

"This is my favourite part," he explained. "The big reveal. My mom saw it when it came out and she told me that when Dorothy opens the door and reveals Oz, there was an audible gasp in the room at how sudden and beautiful and bright it all was. She had seen colour movies before, but never like that." He paused, then added, "Maybe because it was coming from black and white which seemed dull - not even austere, just dim compared to the vibrant flowers." He had always thought he'd understood that moment, he had always enjoyed it as a child, but now it felt like he truly understood. That magical moment when everything that had seemed perfectly fine just opened up into this amazing, startlingly vibrant world full of wonder and new things to explore and a sense of belonging and purpose... "Like you," he added quietly.

Blaine turned to stare at him, a little confused. "What do you mean?"

Gathering his nerve and feeling a little silly anyway, Kurt explained, "The moment I realized I liked you was like that. Like all of a sudden there was nothing in the world but you singing, and everything else was black and white and we were in colour."

"When was this?" he asked, looking as though he was trying to think back to every time Kurt had ever seen him sing and coming to the conclusion there were far too many times.

"Garland at the Grove," Kurt stated. He quietly sang the lyrics of the chorus, of the moment he'd realized exactly what all of this was and put a name to it. "Your eyes made skies seem blue again, what else can I do again, but keep repeating-"

"Through and through..." Blaine filled in the next lyric.

The one after that - "I love you, love you" - hung heavily between them as they stared at each other, the sounds of their breathing echoing through the small car, eyes locked on one another, neither one feeling quite ready to admit that. Not now, not when everything was still so tenuous, so new, so fragile. Still, they understood.

Kurt leaned in first, kissing Blaine deeply as he felt Blaine's palm slowly curl against his cheek. Kurt had half-expected Blaine to pull away as he had during every other time he'd made the first move, but instead he slid closer - as close as he could get with the gear shift between them and the awkward division between the seats. Kurt wished they'd brought his car, with its backseat that had a lot more room, but he supposed maybe it was better to take things slow for right now anyway.

After all, if taking things cautiously meant Blaine didn't skitter away every time Kurt moved toward him, it was more than worth it.

* * * * *

"You know," Kurt said quietly, his head leaning against Blaine's shoulder, "I understand that they wanted to make things easier to film in a short time period, and that hosing down a single white horse to remove the Jello powder and repaint them between each take would be time-consuming..."

"But they could have at least picked horses that looked the same?" Blaine replied with a smile, his arm draped casually around Kurt's shoulders. "That bothered me so much when I saw it last year. I don't know why I hadn't noticed it before that."

"You were more enamored of the Emerald City," Kurt suggested. "I know I was. A place where you could go and be pampered, fixed up, live luxuriously...they can even dye her eyes to match her gown."

"Don't do that - I like your eyes," Blaine stated before realizing quite what he'd said.

Kurt blushed and smiled. "I like your eyes too," he replied, demurring a little. Recovering, he added, "I wanted to live there as a child."

"I can't say I blame you," Blaine replied. In truth, he had too - even though green wasn't his favourite colour, there was an element of everyone blending-in there even though if you looked at them individually or as their small groups they looked a little freakish. From the men with their bulging biceps and semi-short limbs stuffing Scarecrow, to the women who looked like nuns in sequined habits - even the man with the big red beard and comic mustache wearing lime green riding pants and a tall green top hat didn't stand out there.

He knew from the books, of course, that it wasn't real. Everyone looked exactly the same in the Emerald City as they did outside it, it was just that within the borders everyone wore green-tinted glasses that made the Emerald City appear emerald; in reality, people who seemed odd were still odd, there was no magical blending-in ability that made even the most ridiculous characters seem commonplace like there was in the film version. But he had always preferred the movie version anyway.

When he had first transferred to Dalton, he had thought that must be what the Emerald City felt like - grand, imposing, with a cast of characters who seemed outlandish at first but blended one into the next into the next...until he realized that everyone simply knew how to put on masks to go with their uniforms, just as he did. He and Kurt weren't much better off there, it was just red-and-blue striped glasses.

Maybe out here could be different. He had no idea.

"He shouldn't have gotten that hair," Kurt stated, nodding to the Cowardly Lion. "The curls work for him but not when the fur on his shoulders is all so long and straight."

Blaine did his best not to self-consciously reach up and press his own hair into place. He could feel that at least a few curls had shifted out of place when Kurt's hands tangled there while they kissed. Mostly he just watched uncomfortably as the Lion minced and styled his way down the steps with the rest of them. He remembered his father's comments about him the one and only time he remembered watching this movie as a family - his father rarely had time for "that kind of frivolity" and his mother was never interested enough to take him on her own.

He remembered a long and involved conversation his father had with a colleague at the next party Blaine was forced to attend, talking about the ways in which television and film were changing the national psychology. There had always been bad influences, his father reasoned, but now they were so much more readily available than they had been when he had been a child. In the 1920s and early 1930s there had been no outlandish, flamboyant characters for him to go see at the movies - though in hindsight Blaine wondered if that was accurate - but now just look at the prevalence of sissy characters, swishing and mincing characters committed to celluloid who were met without condemnation or correction. If they were allowed to continue, his father had said, what would that teach young boys struggling with such things? This was why strong masculine role models were essential - absolutely vital - in destroying the Communists.

The friend had nodded and shifted into a conversation about the ill-virtues of assertive women in such films, but all Blaine had been able to think about was how much he had liked the Cowardly Lion. The Cowardly Lion, with his overly-dramatic song who felt everything too deeply, especially fear. Who ran away from every fight. Who was practically terrified of his own shadow.

"Which one would you be?" Kurt asked idly.

Blaine could feel the way Kurt shifted against his shoulder to try to get closer and more comfortable, and it made his voice catch in his throat for a moment before he answered. "The Cowardly Lion."

Kurt lifted his head and glanced at Blaine. "Really." He considered it for a moment, then nodded. "I can see that."

"And you?"

Kurt didn't have to think long - his father had made the comparison on a few occasions when he was younger. "The Tin Man," he stated with conviction.

For as long as he could remember, he had been cold. Distant. He didn't trust people, he certainly didn't trust anyone his own age - except Mercedes of course - and he spent so much time shutting everyone out, so much effort trying to protect his heart and his pride and his dignity from the bullies at school, that it was difficult to let people in. But somehow that had changed now and he wanted to let Blaine in everywhere. He wanted Blaine to hand him a chintzy red heart-shaped pocketwatch. Maybe hearts could never be practical until they could never be broken, but he couldn't bear the thought of being without one now that he had it - like going back to black and white movies now that he knew how vibrant colour could be on that screen.

"For what it's worth," Kurt stated as the Lion began to sing, "Unlike the Scarecrow who didn't actually have much of a brain before the Wizard gave him the diploma, or the Tin Man who didn't have a heart until he got the watch...the Lion had courage all along. Just not in a way anyone realized."

"What do you mean?"

"It takes courage to walk around like that," Kurt offered. "To cry, to be that vulnerable..." To not be afraid to show people that he had feelings, that his heart was easily broken, that he was afraid of so much.

"To prance and speak like that," Blaine added, thinking about the way Kurt walked around with his head held high when all Blaine wanted to do was hide...and he wasn't the type of boy who had been labeled a sissy from the age of six the way he was certain Kurt had been. "To not hide everything."

"Being a scaredy-cat requires being pretty brave," Kurt concluded, drawing in a deep breath and looking up at Blaine. Blaine nodded, a note of concern and vulnerability in his eyes as he pulled Kurt just a little closer.

What makes the hottentot so hot?
What puts the ape- in apricot?
Whadathey got that I ain't got?

Courage.

You can say that again!

Both nodded again, leaving the rest unspoken as they settled in to watch the end of the movie.