Chapter Text
Listen:
(or click here if your browser doesn't support HTML 5)
“Kurt! I have good news,” Rachel declares brightly.
“Hello to you too, Rachel,” Kurt responds dryly.
Rachel lets out a loud huff of complaint before barrelling onwards with her announcement. “My sabbatical has come to an end.”
Kurt raises an eyebrow at her in confusion. Sabbatical?
“My vocal restrictions,” she explains, frowning slightly at Kurt for not understanding her immediately.
“Oh! That’s great, Rach!”
She claps her hands together gleefully. “I know! Everyone will be so pleased. I know how hard it was carrying on without me.”
Kurt has to hold his breath to suppress the laughter he feels bubbling up from his gut.
“I think I should sing something to celebrate. What do you think? Happy Days Are Here Again? All Right Now?”
“Rachel, you know I love you but I think they might never let you sing again if you perform either of those numbers.”
“I suppose you’re right. We’ll workshop it over lunch. Come on, we should get to class; do you need anything else from your locker?”
Kurt takes a final look at himself in his locker mirror, pats a flyaway into place, and then closes the locker door. He links elbows with Rachel and walks down the hallway to first period with his best friend.
—
“Kurrrrrt!”
He hears his name echoing down the hallway before he sees the jogging figure come tearing around the corner and catapulting into his arms.
“Kurt! I did it!”
Kurt happily accepts the ball of energy, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend’s neck and allowing himself to be picked up and twirled around in excitement.
“Blaine?” he asks breathlessly, when Blaine finally sets him back on his feet.
Blaine thrusts a piece of rumpled paper into Kurt’s hands. It is a letter.
Dear Mr. Anderson,
The College Board has received your updated request for accommodations form and the accompanying documentation. The initial request was not approved due to only meeting six of the seven criteria required for supporting documentation. Accommodations were requested related to the diagnosis of Reading Disorder (DSM-IV 315.00). The College Board has approved the following accommodations: reader, extended time (1.5x), and extra breaks. Thank you for...
“Oh my god! Your PSAT request for accommodations was approved!”
Kurt pulls back so he can see Blaine’s face. His eyes are shining under the fluorescents.
“Honey, are you crying?”
Blaine blushes and tries to hide his face. “I just… I know I overreacted the first time but I really was worried and...” Blaine trails off, seemingly lost for words to explain how he feels.
Kurt cups Blaine’s face with his hands and soothingly brushes his thumbs over his boyfriend’s cheekbones, wiping away any tears that have fallen. Blaine’s eyes widen in response and Kurt worries he has accidentally set off another wave of tears.
“Hey,” he says softly. “Shh...it’s okay.”
Blaine nods and the movement feels strange to Kurt, who is still cradling his head as it tilts forward and then back up. He grasps Blaine’s face a little more firmly. “I love you, okay?”
Blaine’s shoulders quake for a moment and he nods again, “Yeah, I know. And… I think I’m just in shock from the relief or something. I don’t even know how I’m feeling it’s just overwhelming.”
“Do you want me to hug you some more?”
Blaine looks at him shyly. “Yes, please.”
Kurt wraps his arms around Blaine and pulls him in close. Blaine lets out a sigh of satisfaction and burrows his face deeply into Kurt’s shoulder. They hold each other in silence for a few minutes until eventually Blaine’s arms loosen their grip and he pulls back. This time his face is clear of tears and he’s grinning widely.
“I’m going to kick this test in the balls ,” Blaine declares with a twinkle in his eye and then he pumps his fist triumphantly in the air.
Kurt laughs. “Hell yeah, you are!”
—
Kurt insists on taking Blaine out for a celebratory dinner in honor of getting his accommodations approved. They end up at Breadstix, since it’s the closest sit-down restaurant to McKinley and it strikes the right balance between feeling like a destination and being affordable on a high schooler’s meagre budget.
“Order anything you like, Blaine. This is your night!” Kurt insists.
“ Anything ?” Blaine asks, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.
“Oh dear, you’re going to make me regret this aren’t you?”
“Well, it’s just that I find myself working up an appetite for… ravioli? No, that’s not right. Pizza? Hmm...I mean that does sound delicious but then again, there’s always chicken parmesan. Oh well, I guess I’d better order all of them! And...hmm...oh let’s say...twelve milkshakes, that’s probably enough, right?”
Kurt just rolls his eyes. “Fine, but you’re on your own with the medical bills.”
Blaine drops his jaw in mock disbelief.
When the waiter actually comes to take their order, Blaine ends up just ordering ravioli and a chocolate milkshake.
“Kurt? Blaine?” a voice calls out over the murmur of dinner conversation bubbling around them.
Kurt swings around to see who is calling their names. It is Rachel and she isn’t alone.
Finn?
He responds with a friendly wave and then Rachel is striding quickly towards them, Finn in tow. She lets go of his sleeve when they get to the table. Without so much as asking, Rachel drops down onto the end of the bench and starts sliding towards Kurt, apparently deciding to join them in their booth meant for two.
Kurt ends up pressed tightly up against Blaine on his left—really, he finds it hard to complain—with Rachel and Finn both having managed to squeeze in on his right.
“Are you guys on a date?” Rachel asks, waggling her eyebrows.
“Until you crashed it,” Kurt mutters loudly enough for Rachel to hear.
Blaine just laughs. “Yes, what about you?”
Rachel’s eyes widen in horror. Kurt stomps on Blaine’s foot under the table and hisses his name. Blaine mouths ‘sorry’ and shrugs.
Finn, clearly missing Rachel’s reaction altogether, gives an easy smile and responds with, “Nah, Rachel just wanted to ask me about football, right Rach?”
Rachel lets out a strangled cough. “Yup! That’s, uh, that’s why we’re out for dinner together.”
Kurt nearly loses it, but thankfully he has Blaine to squeeze his thigh under the table in warning; the brief moment of pain is enough to clear his mind and keep the laughter from coming out.
Blaine clears his throat and changes the subject. “So, how is Vik doing in glee club?”
“He’s an excellent vocalist,” Rachel enthuses. “He needs to work on his dancing so Mr. Schuester is making him go to ‘booty camp.’”
“Yeah, but so is half the club,” Kurt adds, wanting to reassure Blaine that Vik isn’t being singled out. “Finn has to go too, right Finn?”
“Rachel says I have two right feet,” Finn explains.
Kurt snorts. “You mean two left feet?”
Finn shrugs and smiles goodnaturedly at Kurt. “Well, whichever feet they are, they never seem to step where they’re supposed to.”
“He isn’t that bad,” Rachel insists, batting her eyes at Finn.
The girl is smitten .
“Rachel, you literally have bruises from when Finn elbowed you during booty camp last week,” Kurt points out.
Finn winces and looks apologetic.
“So, is it your anniversary or something?” Finn asks.
Kurt looks over to Blaine, checking in to see if Blaine is comfortable with Kurt sharing the truth about why they are here. Blaine’s expression is unreadable so he goes with something vague.
“No, Blaine got some good news today so we’re celebrating.”
Kurt feels a hand on his thigh again, but this time the squeeze is gentle, a silent ‘thank you.’
Then his breath hitches because instead of retreating, the hand settles itself on his leg, the thumb occasionally stroking the stitching on his pants. Warmth pools through the fabric, or maybe it's something else because Kurt feels incredibly warm at the point of contact all of a sudden. He exchanges a secret smile with his boyfriend, who seems pleased about the reaction he is getting. Kurt blushes and then leans his head into Blaine’s shoulder, hiding his face for a moment and enjoying the closeness.
—
The back of the chair is hard against Vik’s back and the tag on his shirt itches to distraction. He told his mother several times to only buy him tagless shirts but this one was, “just too handsome” to pass up. I’m never wearing this shirt again. I don’t care how much it cost. His fingers trace the plastic edge of the chair until they find a rough edge and then he begins to pick at the plastic, pulling at the nick again and again.
“Questions?” Mr. Schuester’s loud voice breaks through Vik’s thoughts. Oh no, I missed something. Should I ask? Ms. Sal always says to advocate for myself but I don’t want him to know I wasn’t listening. Someone else probably heard. I will ask Kurt after. Kurt is nice. Kurt will help me.
Vik nods to himself, satisfied with his decision.
“So who wants to start us off on Tuesday with the first performance.” There is a long pause and then Mr. Scheuster laughs. “Don’t all volunteer at once!”
Vik feels confused. But no one is volunteering. That doesn’t make sense. And why is he laughing? That was not funny.
Vik ponders the teacher’s strange words. Perhaps this is an idiom he hasn’t learned yet. He knows a lot of them by now, thanks to his speech therapist. He does not like the way they do not mean what they should, but he understands now that it is just the way people talk and if he wants to understand them then he needs to learn these.
Could it be sarcasm? He wonders. That is the newest thing his speech therapist has been teaching him. He didn’t even want to learn at first. “Sarcasm is mean,” he had told her.
“Not necessarily,” Ms. Zoll had explained. “Sarcasm just means the exact opposite of what the words say. Sometimes it is a friendly joke or it can even be a compliment.”
Vik thinks back to his last pullout session. He had been partnered with Suni and Ms. Zoll had drawn a chart on her white board to explain the steps to figuring out if something was sarcasm. There had been a box for them to write the words that were said and another to write the context in which they were said. If the two matched, the statement was likely sincere. If they didn’t match, the person was either being sarcastic or deceitful. Mr. Schuester is a teacher. Teachers don’t lie. Therefore, it is sarcasm. So it means the opposite. That means “don’t all volunteer at once” must actually mean that Mr. Schuester wants someone to volunteer. Oh! I get it!
Vik feels victorious. Ms. Zoll is going to be so impressed when he tells her.
“Thank you, Mercedes,” Mr. Schuester says. Clearly Mercedes has volunteered while Vik was lost in thought. I would have but I still don’t know what the directions are.
“That’s a wrap, ladies and gentlemen! Get home safe,” Mr. Schuester announces. Vik isn’t sure what ‘that’s a wrap’ means but he looks around and sees that everyone is packing up. He surmises it must mean ‘goodbye’ or something similar. He can ask his teacher tomorrow.
Unfortunately, in the few seconds it takes him to understand that glee club is over, Kurt has already disappeared out the door. Now he cannot ask Kurt. Vik glances around the room, wondering who would be a good person to ask. The longer he thinks, the more people leave. Soon just a few of the boys in letterman jackets remain. He begins to panic and turns to the first person he sees and yelps, “Wait!”
“What’s up, little man?” asks Noah Puckerman. At least he is smiling.
“Could you tell me what the assignment was, please? I did not hear.”
Puck blinks at him and Vik wonders if he has done something strange again. It is so hard to know.
“No problem, little man. Happens to me all the time. Mr. S wants us to sing a song with relatable lyrics, or some shit like that.”
“I do not understand.”
Puck’s face twists into a strange shape; one corner of his lip stays down but the other curls up. Vik isn’t sure what that means.
“Join the club.”
“I did.”
Puck laughs and looks impressed. “You’re funny, little man.”
“Am I?” he asks. But I did not make a joke.
“Yeah, you’re kind of an odd duck but like… in a cool way. I dig it.”
What? I’m a duck? Now he is digging? Vik is utterly lost as to what Puck is trying to say but the older boy is smiling and his tone sounds friendly so Vik decides it must have been a compliment.
“Thank you.”
“Well, you’re one of us now!”
“But what is relatable lyrics?” Vik presses, still waiting for an explanation.
“Oh, right! I think he wants us to pick a song that has lyrics we relate to, so like we feel like the words describe us or something that happened to us, you feel me?”
Vik starts to reach out his hand to feel Puck’s arm but then thinks better of it. I’m being too literal again.
“So Kurt would sing about bullies?”
“Ye—wait what?”
“Kurt could sing a song about bullies because he gets bullied a lot.”
Puck looks over his shoulder to where the boys in red jackets are standing, all clustered around someone’s phone and snickering. “Mike, Sam, Finn! Get your asses over here, now!” Puck shouts.
The three boys exchange confused glances but walk over as asked. I must not be getting it right. Maybe he needs them to help explain? But he sounds mad. Is he mad at me?
“What do you mean Kurt gets bullied a lot?” Puck asks, his voice deep and serious all of a sudden.
“Oh, well, Sarah saw Kurt and Blaine in the dumpster. Blaine said Trey is a bully and I see Trey talking to Kurt sometimes.”
Puck’s eyes bulge and his nostrils flare. He is angry.
“I want names. Who else?”
Vik thinks, trying to remember if Kurt or Blaine mentioned anyone else or if he has seen anyone else bothering them.
“I think...Eskimo?” Vik isn’t sure if the name is quite right but it is the best he can come up with.
“Eskimo?” Finn repeats, looking befuddled.
“Azimio, maybe?” Mike suggests. “Is that who you mean?”
Vik nods.
“Thanks for telling us, little man. You did good!” Puck claps him on the shoulder and Vik wriggles until the hand goes away. He does not like to be touched but he can see that Puck meant it in a friendly way.
“Thank you. Please do not touch me. I do not like it.” Advocating for himself is still important.
“Oh, sorry, little man. I didn’t know.” Puck gives him a smile and Vik wonders if maybe they will be friends.
—
“How was Glee today?” Blaine asks.
Kurt looks up from his laptop and sighs. “Pretty good, but Mr. Schuester gave us a new assignment and I’m having trouble picking a song. That’s actually what I’m working on right now, even though I should probably finish reading that chapter for U.S. History first.”
“Maybe I can help,” Blaine offers.
Kurt grins and pats the spot next to him on the bed. Blaine slides in next to him and Kurt shifts the laptop so it is balanced across both of their knees. It also means that Blaine is so close that Kurt can hear him breathing. They have been doing homework for the past hour and Kurt managed to stay focused but now that Blaine is inches away, that feels like a much bigger challenge.
He really does want help choosing a song, though.
Kurt swallows and starts showing Blaine a few options, playing him samples, hearing his thoughts on the lyrics.
“What’s that one?” Blaine asks, pointing at the final song on the list.
Kurt blushes. This one is about us .
Rather than explain, Kurt just starts the song . He puts the laptop to the side, turning to face Blaine, watching his reaction.
If I could begin to be
Half of what you think of me
I could do about anything
I could even learn how to love
Blaine’s eyes grow wide. “Kurt is that… is that really how you feel?”
“Yes,” he whispers softly. “Sometimes.”
I always thought I might be bad
Now I'm sure that it's true
'Cause I think you're so good
And I'm nothing like you
Blaine grimaces. “Now that part sounds more like me.”
“Blaine, you aren’t bad! You are the best person I know!”
Look at you go
I just adore you
I wish that I knew
What makes you think I'm so special
“I still wonder that sometimes,” Kurt says, voice still hushed.
“Why I think you’re special?” Blaine asks, looking mystified.
Kurt nods.
“Kurt,” Blaine pleads softly. “I must be the worst boyfriend in the world if you don’t already know that.”
“What? No, Blaine, that’s not what I meant.”
“No, I’m serious. You should never doubt how special you are, how I see you. But maybe I never said, just assumed… that you knew .”
Blaine reaches across the divide between them and grasps Kurt’s hands. “You are special because you see me Kurt. I spent years trying to be invisible, trying to hide, but you saw me even then. And you didn’t see a troublemaker or a jerk. You saw me . You are special because you don’t care about the rules, you just care about what’s right, about what people need. There’s a million things we had to do differently because of how I am but you just… accepted it… so easily, Kurt, I never could have imagined how easy it could be until you. I was terrified to date anyone because who would want to put up with all of my shit but you… with you it was as easy as breathing. I just had to tell you what I felt or what I needed and you just… accepted it. You really don’t know how special that is? Because it’s incredibly special. You are incredibly special. And that isn’t even counting your ripped-from-the-pages-of-vogue sense of fashion or how kind you are to your friends or how amazingly talented of a singer you are, Kurt. When I look at you, Kurt, that is what I see.”
Kurt feels strangely fragile, like his heart might crack open at any moment. And there is Blaine looking at him so earnestly, eyes so soft, begging him to believe him and so he does. How could he not? It’s Blaine .
It’s Blaine who sees him like no one ever has. Who feels seen by him like no one ever has. Who loves him so fiercely and without question. Who he loves just as fiercely in return.
Then the laptop is forgotten because Kurt is climbing into Blaine’s lap and sliding his arms around his neck. Blaine moans and the spark he felt before, when their knees pressed together, has burst into flame. He wants to be close to Blaine so badly that he feels it as an ache in his chest, an ache of longing even though Blaine is right here.
Their lips press together and Kurt feels his whole body melt against Blaine. Blaine’s hands slide up under the back of his shirt and nothing has ever felt this good on his skin before. Kurt is in heaven.
Kurt is in love.
—
Kurt is walking hand in hand with Blaine down the main hallway of McKinley when he hears the telltale shouting.
“Fight!”
“Oooh, fight!”
Some of their classmates start to wander outside to watch.
He turns to Blaine and they share a look of superiority and judgement. They will not follow the crowds. They are better than this.
“Kurt!” Rachel is calling his name, running frantically towards them. “You need to come. Please!”
He shares worried and confused looks with Blaine but Rachel has already taken off towards one of the side doors leading to the parking lot and the track behind the school.
“We should probably go see,” Blaine finally says.
Kurt squeezes his hand a little tighter, not wanting to be separated. His heart rate picks up.
The crowd has grown large enough that the boys have to elbow their way through in order to see what is going on.
Puck is yelling. “You think you can come for one of mine and not face the consequences?”
“You come for one of us, you come for all of us,” Mike adds.
Kurt has trouble believing that Mike is fighting; he has never seen him involved in anything like this before. He feels more confused than ever. Who are they talking about? He looks around until he finds Rachel and drags Blaine over to where she is standing, arms folded nervously across her chest.
“What are they doing?” Kurt asks, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd.
“Standing up for you !” Rachel exclaims.
“For… for me?” he asks in disbelief.
He gapes as Puck, Finn, Mike, and Sam all stand there… for him.
“Little bitch was asking for it… spreading his fairy dust all over the place,” Azimio growls.
“Yeah, and those homos fucked up my thing with Sarah,” Trey adds.
“Call them homos one more time, I dare you,” Puck spits back.
Emotions swirl in Kurt’s chest. He is incredibly touched beyond belief that these boys he sings with two days a week but hardly speaks to care this much. He also doesn’t want anyone to get hurt, especially not on his behalf. He is so caught up that he doesn’t register that Blaine is no longer beside him.
“We fucked up your thing with Sarah?” Blaine shouts, hands balled into fists by his sides.
A low “ooooh” ripples through the audience.
“You sick fuck, Sarah doesn’t want to date you. She barely understands what dating is and she definitely isn’t emotionally ready for sex, which I know is all you wanted from her. She’s vulnerable and you wanted to take advantage of her. Of course, I got in the way.”
The glee boys all look furious. Kurt can see from the tension in every muscle of his body that Puck is one word away from turning the battle from verbal to physical.
Kurt leaps forward and grabs onto Blaine’s arm, pulling at him to step back. “Please, don’t fight, Blaine. I don’t want this.” He turns then to the others. “All of you, thank you, really it...it means the world to me that you want to do this but stop, just stop, please! How are you any better than them if you fight the bullies? I don’t want them thrown in the dumpster like I was. I just want it to stop. I just want everyone to be safe at school, is that too much to ask?”
“Azimio? Trey? Is that true? Did you throw these nice boys in the dumpster? With the garbage !”
The crowd of students whirl around to see who is talking. It is the football coach.
Azimio and Trey quickly jump to deny it but suddenly other voices are breaking in.
“They did! I saw them do it!”
“They threw me in too!”
“No one ever does anything to stop them!”
“It’s not right.”
“They throw that Kurt kid in like once a week.”
Coach Beiste’s eyes flash and she regards them with quiet fury.
“I think I’ve heard enough. Trey? Azimio? Please come with me to the principal’s office.”
“But coach!”
“But nothing! School discipline aside, you both signed a code of conduct when you joined the sports teams that has been flagrantly disobeyed. You better hope suspension from track and football are the least you have to worry about.”
“Suspension! But we have a meet this weekend, coach you can’t !” Trey pleads.
“Principal! Now!” she bellows. “The rest of you, break it up! Back to class.”
Trey and Azimio cower and then follow her in silence back to the building.
“Kurt? Are you okay?” Rachel asks. Blaine and her are both regarding him with concern.
“I…” he reaches a hand to his face and with surprise, realizes that he has been crying. Emotion courses through him, his brain finally catching up to his body, and suddenly the tears are streaming down his face.
Rachel’s face pinches with concern but Blaine wordlessly folds Kurt into his arms, softly stroking his hair and letting him just let go. Kurt does, knowing that he is in the safest place in the world.
Kurt hears Rachel questioning Blaine. “Why is he crying? Is he hurt?”
“No, I think he’s just releasing a lot of pent up stress from all of this. He’s… this is a burden he has carried for so long that having it suddenly ripped away, as good as that might feel...I think it is just a lot to process.”
Kurt tightens his hold on Blaine, amazed at how well his boyfriend knows him, heart full of gratitude for finding someone like him. Face still buried in Blaine’s chest, Kurt nods to let Blaine know that he’s gotten it right.
An unfamiliar hand pats his shoulder; Kurt knows it isn’t Blaine’s. He knows the feel of Blaine too well by now; the size and shape of him, the weight and warmth of him, the way he moves, the way he touches Kurt. This isn’t Blaine.
“Let us know if they mess with you again, Kurt, okay?” The voice is soft, gentle even. It’s Mike.
Kurt extricates himself from the safety of Blaine’s arms and turns to face him, this boy he’s barely spoken to.
“I… I didn’t know you cared,” he whispers. “I didn’t know any of you cared.”
Mike cocks his head to the side, eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. “Of course we care, Kurt. You’re one of us. You’re our friend, right?”
He says it as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. Perhaps it is. To Kurt this revelation shakes the very ground he stands upon, his entire world view. For so long he was the boy with one friend, a nobody, a loser. He still is, on the whole of things. But he has friends. They may be friends in low places, but he isn’t alone. He has more friends than he ever knew, if only he had looked around and seen them.
Kurt claps Mike on the shoulder. “Right.”
—
The next day at school, Rachel finds him and Blaine at his locker and Kurt experiences déjà vu as she insists that he follow her outside.
“Please tell me no one is fighting this time, Rach,” Kurt pleads.
“Just look. You have to see.”
Kurt lets out a huff of exasperation at her lack of information but he follows her just the same. He looks to Blaine but his boyfriend shrugs, apparently as in the dark as he is.
“Kurt, look!” Rachel repeats, pointing to the dumpster.
At first, Kurt has no idea what has her so worked up. It’s a dumpster. He knows all too well what it looks like. So what? But then… he looks closer and he sees it. Sometime in the night someone has made a small but powerful addition to the dumpster in which he had spent so many unpleasant moments.
There, new metal glinting in the sunlight, is an industrial sized padlock. Kurt walks closer and tries to open the lid, needing to see for himself. He can get barely an inch of space to open up between the lid and the walls of the dumpster. He circles the metal box, trying it from different angles, but the result is the same.
“Holy shit, they locked the dumpster. Blaine!” he shouts, even though Blaine can obviously see for himself. “Blaine, they locked the dumpster, oh my god, they locked the dumpster!”
Rachel beams at him. “No one is ever getting thrown in this dumpster again,” she declares proudly. She reaches for their hands and together the three of them jump gleefully up and down, squealing with happiness.
“There’s just one problem,” says Blaine with a frown.
“What?” Kurt asks. What could possibly be bad about this?
“Well, it’s just...where am I going to take you for our anniversary?”
Fin.
