007 - Book of Dreams

After approximately an hour of speaking of normal things, school, themselves, likes, dislikes, Blaine excuses himself to visit the toilet and get some more coffee for them. Kurt feels a bit surreal. He just spent an hour talking to a practical stranger, who happens to be a handsome guy, and he had enjoyed himself and not once felt like escaping the place. He had been a bit wary, listening more than talking, but he didn't feel unsafe like he so often does with people he doesn't know.

Kurt knows a lot more about Blaine now, than he did before they stepped in the coffee shop. He's found out that Blaine is a sophomore studying photography and art history; he is from Ohio just like Kurt (which caused a sort of oh-my-god reaction in both of them); he likes books as well though he is not as passionate as Kurt is; he used to be the lead of his old school's glee club; he lives on the campus dormitory and some other useful information. Kurt has also found out that Blaine smiles a lot, laughs almost as much, is passionate about the things he loves, is openly friendly to people and is just overall a really nice (okay, dreamy) guy.

Somehow it had also got into the conversation that Blaine is gay, just as Kurt, and is currently single. Kurt doesn't really know what to do with this piece of information. Kurt feels he could easily like Blaine romantically, and someone might have made an assumption that this was a kind of almost date, based on how they (mostly Blaine, though) have been acting. There is just one problem, a big one. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to Kurt, that Blaine would be interested in him. Blaine is handsome, easygoing, happy, nice, friendly and so sure of himself - and Kurt is, well, himself. Besides, he saw that Blaine treats everyone in that same overly friendly way, when a friend of Blaine's came in the shop and they shared a few words before the friend had to leave. So, Kurt concludes, Blaine couldn't be flirting with him. Right?

Blaine has been gone for a couple of minutes, when another thought comes to Kurt. He figures that he will have time still, before Blaine returns with the drinks, so he takes a really old and withered looking thick notebook from his back. The word "Songbird" is hand-written on the light brown cover. The book is a bit smudged here and there and a looks like it has been opened many many times. It's the book he got from his mother on his eighth birthday, when his mother had already been more tired than usual but Kurt hadn't yet known what was to come.

/

"Happy birthday, my Songbird!" his mom hugs him and gives him a notebook. Kurt looks at his mom's face, a bit confusedly. "This is your very own Book of dreams, sweetie." A look a comprehension comes on Kurt's face and he smiles brightly.

"Like the one you have, mom?"

"Yes, just like that one. You can write all your dreams in it so you will never forget them and you can make sure they will all come true."

Kurt holds the book to his chest and shouts "Thanks mom! I will always keep it!" and hugs her again, with all the strength he has. He gives his mom one of his new felt-tip pens and she knows what to do.

/

Kurt remembers how his mother wrote 'Songbird', the special nickname for Kurt that only she used, on the cover and how that night he filled it with dreams of new toys and visiting Disneyland. When his mother grew weaker, Kurt wrote that he wanted his mother to get happy again. When she died a few month later, Kurt wrote: "I want to see my mom again." That dream is still number one of his list - the list that he started numbering and writing only things that really mattered in. He has kept his Book of dreams updated since his mother's death, as her blessing to his life. He still wants to keep his promise to his mom, even if sometimes he feels the dreams pile up but not many of them are really going to come true. Now, though, he feels he can cross at least one dream out of the list, one he wrote when he was fifteen and dealing with being gay and very alone. He takes a pen out of his bag and crosses 'I want to have coffee with a nice guy.' He figures, even if it is not a date, exactly, his fifteen year old self would have found this a dream fulfilled.

Kurt doesn't manage to get the book away before Blaine comes back carrying their coffees and notices it.

"Songbird?" Blaine reads from the cover. "Wow, that looks like an old book." he comments with a friendly smile. Kurt wonders if Blaine can see the melancholy Kurt is feeling on his face. He thinks, maybe it's okay to tell Blaine about his mother.

008 - Inspiration

Blaine thinks Kurt is interesting. He is not interesting in the same way that the guys Blaine is usually attracted to, but in his own unique way. Kurt is a mystery, a mystery that Blaine really wants to solve. During the last hour Blaine has noticed that under his calm and reserved elegance, Kurt is still very much wary and a bit nervous with him. Still, there is a sense of realness in him, like Kurt is totally honest, almost brutally himself. Blaine can see it in Kurt's reactions, his words and his silence, how he has no pretence. Everything he seems to be, he is, even when he is holding himself back and a little wary about the situation. Besides and because of all this, Kurt is also utterly, strikingly beautiful.

Blaine knows he has been flirting during the last hour, even though he has been trying to keep it subtle. He knows Kurt is a bit scared, but he is also gay and gorgeous, so how could Blaine help himself? Blaine wants to see behind the wall around Kurt. The wall has become slightly thinner during this meeting, but there is still a lot of it left. Blaine thinks there are probably very few people who have ever seen Kurt without it. To Blaine Kurt is the kind of wild horse that needs understanding, patience and tenderness to get near to. Only very few people have skills to do it, but there is a pure and wonderful soul to find if you succeed.

When Kurt starts to tell the story of his notebook and his mother, Blaine can't help but feel this is a test. Like Kurt is testing how Blaine will react when Kurt gives him a little bit of his vulnerability. Will Blaine be condescending and think his story is not that special or worth telling? Will Blaine pity him and start looking at him differently than before? Will Blaine laugh at him? Or maybe freak out and leave him? Blaine can practically hear these questions in the small glances Kurt makes towards him while he speaks, in the way he is playing with the coffee cup in his hands, in the way his face betrays the feelings of nervousness and slight fear among the sweet sadness of his story. It seems like Kurt is preparing himself for Blaine's failure. Blaine wants to pass the test.

When Kurt tells about his mother's death and what he wrote in the book, Blaine feels indescribably sorry for the man in front of him and the little boy he used to be. He concentrates to show only attentiveness, interest and sympathy on his face, though, because he knows Kurt isn't telling this to get his pity or his advice. Kurt wants to be heard. Blaine makes sure he hears. Kurt is telling his story with detachment in his voice, keeping it light, but there is an underline of great emotion and shear importantness of the story woven in between the words.

"...so I still keep the book updated, even though some of the things in it are really silly." Kurt says self-deprecatingly with a small laugh.

"Why would they be silly?" Blaine asks with a kind smile.

"I mean, I'm not going become the president of the United States, am I? Or become a bestseller." Kurt says with a slightly rueful smile. He is joking, but there is the undertone of sarcasm that is bitter and resigned.

Suddenly a lot of things are connected together in Blaine's head to form a new picture of things. A new and wonderful idea. Kurt's mother and her advice, Kurt's bucket list kept all the time to this day, Kurt's sadness when faced with all the unfulfilled dreams he doesn't dare to believe in anymore; all this is put side by side in his brain with Blaine's photography project, his theme of leaving your comfort zone and finding the new adventures of the unknown of the outside world. And all this is then connected together by the single photo Blaine took of Kurt that day in the library, the image of Kurt with the halo of innocence in his hair watching the world outside, yearning to join it but unable to do that through the glass between. This all comes together to form the perfect photography project. Kurt is Blaine's photography project. Kurt could pick some of those silly childhood dreams and they could make them happen in a photograph: for that one frozen moment caught in a frame they could be true, and he could cross them from his list. And they could choose the more recent, less silly dreams that Kurt nevertheless feels he can't realize and make happen as well. His photography project could be the story of going out there and reaching for Kurt's dreams.

Blaine doesn't think how to deliver this as he starts blurting out his idea. He feels almost euphoric in his inspiration and need to create. He explains the idea to Kurt, speaking fast and so lost in his own world of inspiration that he doesn't notice how Kurt hasn't said anything since Blaine started talking. He doesn't notice how Kurt hasn't look at Blaine for a while, and is staring at his feet instead. How he is fidgeting in his chair and the unease is increasing in his movements and his expression little by little as Blaine talks.

"And that's what I thought we could do! What do you think?" Blaine finally turns to look at Kurt with an ecstatic smile - and notices the bordering on panic expression on Kurt's face. This makes him crash from the idealistic world of creation back to the reality. He curses himself for not thinking what he does before he does it, once again. (Wonderful, Blaine, you are such a natural talent at scaring Kurt away.)

"I don't.. I don't know, Blaine, I just- It's all so much, I don't know, I don't think I... I don't know" Kurt ends with desperation in his voice, trying to rise from his chair, until Blaine takes his hand lightly and pleads him to sit for a while more with his eyes.

"Oh, I'm so sorry Kurt, I lost myself in the inspiration again, I didn't mean to make this sound scary to you. You don't need to do this, of course, I just thought it would be great idea and hearing about your mother's story, I think it is so beautiful and inspirational and it would really be a story worth telling. She would be worth telling. As would you, Kurt." Blaine says this with his most sincere smile, trying to convey Kurt how much he really means this.

Kurt's eyes soften when he hears Blaine speak about his mom, even if he is still most of all really uneasy.

"I don't know Blaine, it's just a lot. I think I need to go, I have studying to do, I just... I think I need to go." Kurt says, and his voice betrays his need to escape, but this time the 'I don't know' sounds like a genuine question, as if Kurt really doesn't know and it's not just a dismissal of Blaine's idea. This gives Blaine hope so he continues.

"We could just try, make one photo session and you can just see whether or not you want to do it. If you feel it's not good, we can just forget it, and regardless, I would really love to get to know you." Blaine says. "Here's my number," he takes a napkin and writes the digits on it, "Please think about it and let me know what you think." Blaine offers the napkin to Kurt with a friendly smile.

Kurt takes it, looks at it and then back to Blaine. He answers Blaine's smile, just a tiny little twitch of his lips, but it is there anyway. "Thank you, Blaine. I will think about it, I promise." With a quick bye Kurt rises from his chair and leaves the coffee shop.

Three days later at half past ten Blaine is lying in his bed in his dorm room listening to music when his phone beeps with a new message.

/

09-20-2012 22:33 From: Unknown number

Let's do it.

009 - Courage

When Kurt leaves the coffee shop, he just feels like he has to become invisible again for a while, be forgotten from the world and not be seen, because being seen right now seems complicated and scary and confusing. He goes back home and reads a book until it's almost three am and he literally can't keep his eyes open anymore. He falls asleep immediately and thus doesn't have time to think about things. Next day he goes to classes, does his homework and after that watches a movie after movie, so that he wouldn't need to live his own life for a while. When Rachel comes home she tries to talk to him, but when he doesn't answer she knows him well enough to let him escape the world. Two hours later Rachel finds Kurt's phone and drops it in his lap, with his father's ID showing on the screen. Kurt looks at it for a minute and pushes 'call'.

Kurt doesn't tell his dad about Blaine and Burt does not ask, even though he seems to know there is something going on. Kurt asks his dad whether he will ever be less scared of people and his dad tells him to be brave, because he is a Hummel and, even more importantly, he is Kurt, and both of those things make him a wonderful, strong person, who matters. Kurt is surprised that he doesn't feel like crying. He feels stronger, somehow. After the call Kurt drinks the warm milk that is offered to him by Rachel with a sympathetic smile. It makes Kurt realise once again how wonderful a friend Rachel truly is, despite all her pride, stubbornness, self-centeredness and plain weirdness. He hugs her tightly and later her singing from the other side of the curtain between their beds helps him fall asleep.

The next day Kurt feels brave again, ready to face his promise to really think about Blaine's idea and face all the feelings that go with thinking about it and all that has happened. Kurt cries, because he doesn't feel like a guy like Blaine could really be interested in him in any way. He cries, because he doesn't know if he could do it, be that exposed in front of another person, in front of a camera and in front of all the people who would then see the photos. He cries, because he can see in his head how the two of them would be having fun, dressing up and planning scenes, and he wants it more than anything. He cries, because just the idea of doing these photos to hold on to his mother's words is too wonderful to handle. He cries, because if he did this, sooner or later Blaine would inevitably realise how much Kurt is not worth his attention and his friendship. Kurt cries the fact that he is not enough and too awkward and so alone and so, so scared. Kurt cries, because he want's but he doesn't think he can.

When his tears inevitably subside, he takes his Book of Dreams in his hands and leafs through it without concentrating too much on any single number or page. He sees how many of the dreams have not been crossed. He remembers his mother's Book of Dreams, the one she had shown him when he was a kid, and how many of those seemed to be striked through. The comparison makes him feel like he has betrayed his mother, no matter how dutifully he has written things in the book and carried it around. Not forgetting was only a part of the promise.

He notices that one of the pages nearer to the front of the book is torn a little, a piece of it sticking out from between the other pages. He opens the page curiously and sees dreams number 45 to 50 written with his fourteen-year-old handwriting. One in particular captures his whole attention.

"47. I want to be a model."

One more tear falls as he thinks how much his mother had loved him, is still loving him somewhere up there. He thinks about the pre-teen boy, who had seen a gorgeous designer jacket on Vogue and envied the man who was allowed to wear it, looking so confident with his flawless face, smiling confidently on the cover.

With a new kind of determination, Kurt digs around his jacket pocket and retrieves a napkin.