A couple of hours later, Kurt and Blaine almost crash a wedding.

Two people have a ceremony in the woods.

“Sorry, sorry, ignore us!” Blaine says. Everyone’s staring at the carriage, which makes sense, since it’s self-driving.

“Congratulations!” Kurt yells out to the bride and groom.

“Yes. Hooray!” Blaine adds.

They continue their trip and laugh. What must these people be thinking? What will people say when they go back home and recount the moment a self-driving carriage appeared from behind some trees?

“Happy, happy, happy,” Kurt says quietly and to Blaine’s surprise, he sounds a bit annoyed. Where did that come from?

They continue the trip and Kurt’s deep in thought. He’s clearly thinking about something. He doesn’t even notice that Blaine is looking at him. He doesn’t even eat his fondlate!

Two hours later, they get out to set up a camp to stay overnight. Blaine uses his magic to set up the tent and Kurt connects the batteries to the sleeping bags.

When it’s all set up, Blaine makes a fire and they sit by it to eat the food they bought in town. Kurt is talking about the trip, but something is off.

And since Kurt helped Blaine by saying nice things, Blaine wants to return the favour.

“Uh, Kurt, can I borrow some of your time?” Blaine starts.

“Yes?” Kurt asks, seemingly confused by the formality.

“I just want you to know that I want to be there for you as well. We’re a team! Sergeant Hand- I mean, the Sergeant even thinks so!”

“What?” Kurt asks.

“Just, uh, you can talk to me. About what you want. Or why you are suddenly so annoyed.”

“It’s nothing,” Kurt says with a smile. It’s a fake smile. Blaine knows Kurt well enough by now to look through it.

So Blaine gives Kurt a look, showing that he’s not falling for it. Kurt’s fake smile falters.

“It’s… Okay. Yeah.”

“Are you annoyed that wedding interrupted our trip?”

“Of course not. It was a small interruption, and it was funny!” Kurt answers.

“But?”

“… But seeing the groom and bride made me a bit sad, yeah. Nothing personal to them, I am happy for them, but just- There’s a larger issue with this world.”

“I thought you loved Daltonia?”

“I do!” Kurt quickly says, “I do. But it misses something from my world and I have been noticing ever since we hit the road, and the wedding just rubbed extra salt into the wound.”

“Is something wrong with my world?” Blaine asks, confused.

Kurt nods.

“Uh. I think it’s a bit unfair to judge my world by the standards of yours,” Blaine points out.

“Maybe,” Kurt says, “But your world was created by someone from my world. D.B. Dalton did that with our world in mind, so despite all the magic and the sci-fi elements, your world still reflects ours! And it fails!”

“Daltonia is not a failed kingdom-”

“No, it’s not. That may have been too mean. But it’s flawed, and you don’t even see it because B.D. never wrote that awareness into it. I love Daltonia too, with my whole heart, and always will, but it is flawed and misses things. And that does suck.”

“The people of Daltonia-”

“- have done nothing wrong,” Kurt quickly finishes Blaine’s sentence, “You have done nothing wrong. You don’t know better, but I do. And even I didn’t always know better. I remember when my friend Mercedes talked about how it’s like for her to read descriptions of skin colour as food. And I don’t know from experience how middle Eastern and Asian fans feel about the Oriental kingdom, but I have read commentary from fans. I didn’t know about that either!”

“Then why are you so angry at those people from the wedding?”

“I’m not angry at them,” Kurt reminds him, “I just… I’ve noticed something wrong with Daltonia ever since I was a kid, and I had hoped that being here would prove me wrong, but it hasn’t, and that upsets me.”

“What is wrong with Daltonia, then?”

“Everyone here is straight!”

Blaine doesn’t know what that means, and it must be written over his face, because when Kurt looks at him, he sighs sadly.

“See? You cannot even prove me wrong, because you have no clue what I am talking about.”

And Kurt looks really devastated when he says that.

“I’m sorry,” Blaine says, but it feels like it isn’t enough and he doesn’t even know why.

“Being here showed me that the world of The Cooper Chronicles goes on, even without us fans knowing. It’s been more than ten years since the final book, and those years have passed. And since Daltonia is apparently an actual world, I had hoped that maybe it was just never mentioned because it wasn’t relevant to the plot. Or maybe it would have been discovered in these years. Or whatever. I just cannot imagine a world, any world, without queerness.”

Kurt lets out a bitter laugh.

“But I should’ve known better. A series from the nineties? Even the members of the Chronicles Club got paired up: Cooper and Arasha, Mel and Mo, Eileen and Javier…”

“Uh. Mel and Mo broke up years ago. If that helps?”

“It doesn’t, but interesting nevertheless.”

“But maybe you can explain what this all is? Maybe you just haven’t noticed it yet!”

Kurt seems to think it over and Blaine realises he’s probably never had to actually explain this to someone like this. Or maybe he has. Blaine wouldn’t know, since he doesn’t know what is happening.

Blaine leans closer to Kurt, to show that he is willing to learn. Kurt did say that he likes that about him.

“Okay. So, in my world, straight people are men who are in love with women, or women who are in love with men. It’s called heterosexuality. But then there’s also homosexuality. Men who are in love with men, or women who are in love with women. Of course, there’s more than that, and more than men and women-”

Blaine perks up and interrupts him.

“We have that too,” he says.

Kurt’s mouth falls open.

Blaine nods and he feels so happy that he can tell Kurt this.

“My friends Nick and Jeff are in love! And Silva? Yes, she has a wife! Mel also had a girlfriend after she broke up with Mo, although she and Lucinda are already over too-”

“Mel is bi?” Kurt exclaims in shock.

“I… don’t know,” Blaine says honestly, since has no idea what bi is, but that’s probably the term they use in Kurt’s world.

“But- But…” Kurt stammers. He looks absolutely stunned, and he’s trying to process this new information. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and tries to compose himself.

“But?” Blaine prompts.

“Why didn’t I know this?”

“I also don’t know,” Blaine says, “Maybe because Mel and Lucinda were seeing each other after the events of the books. Same goes for Silva. She met her wife around 7 years ago.”

And Blaine assumes that Nick and Jeff never made it to the books. Blaine’s known them ever since he was 5, so it was possible, but Cooper’s never really interacted with Blaine’s friends, ever, so they weren’t relevant to his story. Besides, they confessed their love for each other at 16, so that is also years after the last book.

“And it’s true that the words you speak are unfamiliar to me. I didn’t know there were words for these things.”

“Then how do you know it exists? Words give meaning.”

“I see it in the world around me,” Blaine answers. There are many more examples that Blaine could give.

Heck, he likes men! He’s always known this. Should he have told Kurt? It never occurred to Blaine to tell Kurt, because it wasn’t important in his mind.

It’s true that the majority of the people in Daltonia are, in Kurt’s world’s words, straight, but that doesn’t mean that they all are.

“Maybe it was never mentioned in the books, or we don’t have those words, because B.D. Dalton indeed didn’t think about it,” Blaine says, “But as you said to me… Just because B.D. didn’t think about it, it doesn’t make it less true. If I can exist without her interference, then so can this. And it does.”

“And you never thought to name it?” Kurt wonders.

“We did,” Blaine says back, “We call it love.”

Kurt burst out into tears and Blaine doesn’t know what to do. He moves closer to Kurt and pats him on the back, like a good friend would do.

“I’m sorry?” he says to comfort him, but he doesn’t know if that’s the right thing to do.

“No, it’s- I’m crying because I am- I am so relieved!” Kurt cries out, “Blaine, this means so much to me. Shit.”

“Shit. As in holy shit?”

“No. Just shit. Fuck. Damn. My life would’ve been so much better if I had known.”

“Is this a problem in your world then?” Blaine asks.

“Yes, unfortunately.”

Kurt elaborates more about it and Blaine indeed doesn’t like what he’s hearing. Kurt says that the year in his world is 2013 and things have gotten way better in the past few years, but it still isn’t great. Blaine had never thought that someone could be against this, since in his world is so normal that they don’t even think about it. It’s as if someone would be against breathing. But no one is, and no one is aware of their own breathing until they’re told about it.

Holy shit. Maybe Blaine should’ve told Kurt about himself, but Blaine wasn’t even aware that this is something that played in the background of their quest.

“Kurt?” he starts.

Kurt sniffs some more, but he nods.

“I never told you this because I thought it wasn’t important but I also was in love with a man.” Or boy. He and Trent were teens when they tried dating. And before Trent, he was in love with Sebastian, but that never led to anything, since it was just a childhood crush.

“What?” Kurt’s head jerks towards him.

“Uh. Yes.”

“What?” Kurt exclaims.

“Sorry for not telling you!” Blaine immediately says.

“… This day did not go as I thought it would,” Kurt says, looking stunned and he wipes the tears from his cheeks.

“Sorry?” Blaine asks again.

But to his extreme relief, Kurt smiles.

“Don’t be, Blaine! As I said, I am relieved. I haven’t been this happy ever since I landed in Daltonia!”

“Uh, you’re welcome, then.”

Kurt’s smile widens.