Work Text:
To Kurt: Can you come over? I need my bf.
From Kurt: I’m sorry, babe, I’ve got practice with Mike this afternoon. Why?
To Kurt: Santana. Scarred. I will never be able to look myself in the eye again.
From Kurt: Oh god, why? What did she do?
To Kurt: She *rapped,* Kurt. I’m never going to be able to recover.
To Kurt: She wants me to rap too, Kurt, I’m never *ever* going to be able to recover.
From Kurt: Oh you poor darling. At least you can keep up with Santana dance-wise. Mike is going to run circles around me.
To Kurt: But *rapping,* Kurt.
From Kurt: I’ve heard you play Rock Band with Sam and Finn. You don’t get to play innocent.
To Kurt: Shoot, I thought you were asleep for that.
From Kurt: Believe me, I wish I had been.
To Kurt: Kuuuurrrrrrt.
From Kurt: Blaiiiiiine :) I’m kidding, love. You’ll be fine. Want me to come over after I’m done with Mike?
To Kurt: Please yes please. I will make cookies!
From Kurt: ...oh god please don’t. Not til I’m there to supervise. You remember what happened with the snickerdoodles.
To Kurt: Snickerdoodles? What snickerdoodles? If there had been snickerdoodles I would have remembered them, and would not have banned from ever mentioning them again.
From Kurt: Mentioning or attempting them again.
From Kurt: There was flour on the *ceiling fan,* Blaine.
To Kurt: I’m talented?
From Kurt: That you are, darling. That you are.
To Kurt: Don’t say it like that!
From Kurt: Like what? ;)
From Kurt: Love you, Blaine. I’ll text when I’m on my way.
To Kurt: Love you too! Kiss :)
From Kurt: Kiss <3
Blaine sets the phone down on his nightstand and flops backwards onto his bed. It’s still early afternoon; he’d escaped early from practice with Santana (and god why did Mr. Schue think random duet assignments were a good idea, what if their voices didn’t blend and he had been looking forward to working out the tension of the day with Kurt with a few blissful parent-free hours in his bedroom. Without Kurt, though, the house just feels cold and echoey, and it’s still a beautiful day outside, cold but sunny, and way too nice to sit up here and start homework or - worse - ponder the atrocity that his duet is going to be.
He pulls his phone back over to himself and starts scrolling through the contacts. Finn and Puck have some sort of video game tournament planned for the afternoon; Blaine had been invited but he’d been hoping for some time with Kurt instead and; Sam is meeting his tutor at the library, Mike’s busy with Kurt, Rachel is in full competition lockdown mode...
Blaine grins. He has the perfect idea.
To Tina C^2: Hey, what are you up to?
The reply only takes a minute. From Tina C^2: Homework? Unless you have a better idea?
To Tina C^2: I was going to make Kurt cookies but he’s banned me from the kitchen. Want to have a boyfriendless bonding afternoon?
From Tina C^2: YES PLEASE. Mom’s threatening to make me start cleaning out the basement if I keep complaining about being bored. We can craft?
To Tina C^2: Excellent. Your place or mine?
From Tina C^2: You sure know how to charm a girl ;) Want to come over here? Dad made pigs-in-a-blanket.
To Tina C^2: I’ll be over in 20!
Blaine grins as he knocks on the front door of the Cohen-Chang house and then pushes it open.
“In here, Blaine!” Tina’s voice calls from the kitchen, and Blaine hangs his coat up in the hall closet and waves to Mr. Chang , who greets him with a “Hey, how’s school?” and hands him a covered plate to take to Tina.
Tina has the kitchen table staked out, and when Blaine walks in she grins brightly and stands to give him a hug, even though they’d seen each other at school barely an hour ago. “Hey! I’m glad you could come over. I could totally use your help.”
Blaine raises an eyebrow as he looks at the table, trying to find a clear spot to put the plate down. It’s absolutely covered in squares of shiny paper in every color of the rainbow. “What - are you doing?”
“Senbazuru!” Tina chirps happily, plopping down on her chair again, and fishing through balled-up scraps of paper.
“What?” Blaine sits down across from her, and picks up one of the piece of paper.
“A thousand paper cranes,” Tina explains, finally plucking a rather battered-looking one out of the pile and handing it to Blaine. “It’s supposed to be good luck. Mike’s got an audition next month and he’s been spending a ton of time in the dance studio - I figured I could sneak in there one day before class and hang these all up.”
Blaine takes the little crane from her fingertips, carefully, not wanting to ruin it. “That’s...incredibly sweet, Tina.”
Tina beams, and bounces a little in her seat. “I know, isn’t it?” Blaine grins and sets the crane back down gingerly, and watches her happily. She and Mike are so cute , so sweet and steady, the only couple in their circle that’s been together longer than he and Kurt have, which at this point in the year is really saying something.
“I wish I could do something like this for Kurt - somehow I’m not sure Carole would appreciate these things all over her house.”
“Oh, she’d love it,” Tina smiles. “Are you kidding? But I don’t think they’d last very long, Finn’s like Godzilla, and they’re kind of delicate.”
Blaine nods, and fingers the folded paper, and thinks about what he’d most want to give Kurt. Not cranes - not hope, god knows Kurt has enough of that, enough surety in their future for both of them. Not something big like this, either; something Kurt would be able to take it with him to New York next year...
“So, you’re really going to get all of these done in a month?”
Tina rolls her eyes. “I will if you help me. Here.” She shoves a little stack of blue paper at him, and a spiral-bound book. “Instructions are in there.” She looks at the clock over Blaine’s head. “Mike and Kurt should be done in an hour. Bet you can’t get ten done by then!”
Blaine has managed eight of the cranes - they’re fiddly, and the shiny foil paper is unforgiving of mistakes - by the time his phone buzzes in his pocket. He holds it between his ear and his shoulder while he tries to get the beak right on the eighth bird.
“Hey, sweetheart!” he says, and catches Tina’s eye and grins when she, texting quickly on her phone, smiles back. “How did it go?”
“Hi, Blaine. It was fine,” Kurt says, in the tone that Blaine knows isn’t fine at all. “What are you doing tonight?”
Blaine frowns, and runs his fingernail along a crease to sharpen it. “What’s wrong?” Across the table from him, Tina’s brow is creased as she taps keys on her phone.
“Nothing’s wrong. Do you want to come over for dinner? Are your parents still out?”
“Yeah, I can come over. I’m at Tina’s now, actually, do you want to swing by?”
A sigh, down the line. “No, I should get dinner started before Finn decides to get creative. I’ll see you at my house?”
“Will you tell me then?”
A sigh that’s more like huffed laughter, now. “I love you, Blaine.”
“I love you too! See you soon.”
Tina’s arms are folded on the table when Blaine hangs up, and she’s tapping her phone off a stack of green-and-white patterned squares.
“So something is up with our boyfriends,” she announces, and Blaine winces. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Mike was..weird too?”
“Mhmm. And he doesn’t do drama like Kurt does - no offense,” Tina says, and tucks her hair behind her ear. “So something is up. I say we investigate!”
Blaine sighs and sets his finally-completed swan down. “There really isn’t enough homework at McKinley, is there?”
“Nope!” TIna grins. “We have to make our own excitement.”
*
Blaine looks dispirited when he slides into the seat beside Tina in the cafeteria.
“So. What’s up with our boys?” Tina munches a french fry, and Blaine gives her a wary look.
“Come on, Blaine,” she wheedles, and pushes her tray over so he can help with the rest of the fries. “I already got Mike’s story.”
Blaine sighs, and fiddles with a ketchup packet. “Kurt thinks Mike hates him.”
“Yup, that’s what I thought.” Blaine looks at her startled, like he can’t believe she’s taking this so lightly. And Blaine thinks the McKinley kids are dramatic. “Mike thinks Kurt hates him, too.”
“But - why?” Blaine’s face scrunches up when he frowns, and Tina has to give Kurt props for taste. Even distressed and confused, Blaine is cute.
Tina shrugs and eats another fry. “Because they’re stupid boys. But Mike thinks that Kurt thinks that Mike is a homophobic dickwad jock.”
“I -” Blaine’s ears go red.
“Kurt thinks that Mike is a homophobic dickwad jock, doesn’t he.”
“I told him he wasn’t!”
“And he’s not,” Tina shrugs again. “But he’s worried he did something to offend Kurt, or scare him, and you know Mike - he’s not the best at, you know, expressing his feelings, not like you and I and Kurt are, and he feels awful that he did something to hurt him.”
Blaine’s shaking his head quickly. “No, no, he didn’t do anything - just - things Kurt was saying. I think they were both really nervous? For some reason? And freaked each other out. Kurt just - he’s. You know.”
He shrugs, and Tina nods, because she’ll never be able to blame Kurt for being skittish. “Yeah - yeah. I’ll talk to him?”
“Yeah! I’ll talk to Mike. And then maybe sometime we can hang out? The four of us? Work on our songs together?”
“Yeah,” Blaine seems to consider something, and then nods. “Yeah, that sounds great.”
*
*
Kurt’s stretched out on Blaine’s bed, head resting on his arm and blinking up at him with lazy eyes, his mouth curving into a smirk. “It’s not going to bother you next year? When I’m doing duets with other people?” They very carefully haven’t mentioned who Kurt is doing a duet with right now, and if Kurt doesn’t want to talk about it, Blaine isn’t going to pry. Yet.
Blaine hooks a foot on the edge of the bed and swivels himself side-to-side in the desk chair. It’s on the tip of his tongue to say no, of course not, and then give Kurt a flirty look and crack a joke because that’s the answer. But for the first time it hits him, it really hits him, that next year Kurt is going to be doing duets, and going to school, and living, with people who are not Blaine.
It’s not that Blaine thinks he’s going to be going to New York with Kurt next year, no matter how much Kurt likes to plan their eventual apartment or talks about audition songs and Blaine gets caught up in daydreaming with him. It’s that he forgets that Kurt’s not going to be with him next year; that he’s going to graduate, very very soon, and no matter that Blaine has an appointment with Miss Pillsbury on Tuesday to talk about his schedule for next year and that he and Tina and he are already talking about the songs they want to do next year, Blaine is going to be here and Kurt is not going to be. Not in an abstract, distant, chasing-big-dreams-in-a-big-city way, but in a Kurt-is-not-going-to-be-sitting-on-my-bed-this-time-next-year way. Blaine feels cold.
“Blaine?” Kurt gets an elbow under himself, props himself up to lean closer to him. “Are you okay?”
And Blaine can’t say everything he’s feeling, hardly even can process this feeling, heady and terrifying and new, much less try to explain to Kurt the sudden chasm that just opened up in his calendar, six months from now, without somehow saying everything. Blaine’s only just begun to understand what everything might someday mean, and he knows he’s not ready, not yet, so he just shrugs and smiles. “You will always be my very best duet partner.” He leans forward to kiss Kurt on his smiling mouth. “But I love to see you shine, no matter who you’re singing with.”
It feels cold in his chest to say it, even though Kurt’s palm on his cheek is warm. He tries to tell himself it doesn’t feel like a lie.
*
Tina flips the SAT prep book closed and sighs, folding her arms on the pillow and looking at Mike with baleful eyes. “You just had to pick a school with a good arts program and, didn’t you.”
Mike grins at her over the edge of his chemistry book. “Don’t even give me that. You know you love a challenge.”
“Yes but the verbal section? Sucks.” Tina huffs and rolls over on her back, staring up at the ceiling.
“You know I picked it because it has prgrams we both want, right?”
“I know.” The thought never fails to make Tina smile and be more than a little proud of them. They’ve gotten all the lectures from their parents (both sets, but only Mike’s had been really determined about it; her mom and dad had just given her a “you know, sweetie, things change after high school” talk and she had appreciated the spirit of it, and then she had given them the list of colleges she and Mike had found that were close to each other and had the programs they were both interested in. “Homework is just boring.
“How’s your duet with Finn coming along?”
“Alright,” Tina shrugs. “He wants to do ballads, but I think that’s just because he always does them with Rachel . I have some ideas to break him out of that, though.”
“Oh really?” Mike puts the book aside and Tina smiles and him when he crawls on the bed beside her.
“Mhmm.”
“Like what?”
“That would be telling.”
“...You helped me with my choreography for Kurt!”
“Mm. I know. Kind of silly of you to suggest that, really.”
“Tina..” Mike warns, but he’s laughing, and she’s already giggling. “Oh, it doesn’t matter, we haven’t picked anything yet. I’ll let you know when we do though.”
“I’m sure you will.”
*
“I just worry about him sometimes.”
“Which one?” Tina tweaks the wings of a particularly lovely gold-foil swan. There have been a lot of afternoons together, while Kurt and Mike work out their - routine, or their issues, or whatever - they’ve had a lot of practice at craneing, by now.
“Kurt. Both of them. All of us. I mean - I can understand why he worries, I do. But he’s known Mike forever, and I know Mike’s never been anything but nice to him, and he’s still worried. How’s he going to be able to trust people in New York, when he doesn’t know any of them at all?”
“...I’m beginning to understand why Mr. Schue keeps saying that high school screws everyone up.” Tina sighs, and it’s not like her, to sound so down. Blaine should stop and ask about it, he should, but now that he’s started talking he can’t stop the fears from coming out, everything he’s worried about and still doesn’t know how to say to Kurt yet.
“And what if - instead - Kurt does trust people? I mean, trusts everyone? Because it’s New York and everyone’s happy and rainbowy and what could possibly go wrong and what if he gets hurt, Tina? Like, in a really bad way?”*
“He’ll be fine, Blaine.” Tina reaches across the table and squeezes his hand. “He’s not stupid. And he is ridiculously strong.”
“I know,” Blaine sighs. Sometimes, that’s the whole problem.
*
They settle on a movie night at Kurt and Finn’s house. Tina loves the Hudson-Hummel house; like her own, in a lot of ways, that it always smells good and that it’s never quite as tidy as anyone wants it to be. In some ways it’s even better; there are always people over, Mr. Hummel and Mrs. Hudson are awesome, and Kurt is a freakishly good baker.
“No, Blaine,” Kurt says, taking the baking powder out of his hand and giving him a spoon instead. “No dry ingredients. You can scoop the cookies, though.”
Blaine seems unperturted by Kurt’s eyeroll. “Someday I’ll be able to make you cookies without messing up the kitchen.”
“Someday, Blaine. Not today.”
Blaine just laughs and kisses Kurt’s cheek and Kurt squeaks, probably because despite his ban Blaine’s hands somehow still got floury.
“You’ve got flour on you, too,” Mike says, low in her ear, and Tina turns to grin at him.
“Yeah? Get it for me?”
His thumb on her cheek is warm and soft, and he kisses her once before he moves to wash his hands at the sink. “So, what movie are we going to watch?”
*
Kurt and Tina end up in the kitchen while the boys bring out the cookies to the living room. Tina catches Kurt watching Blaine as he leaves, and there’s something wistful in his glance that she doesn’t think she’s seen before.
“Everything okay?” she asks, and snaps the lid of a tupperwear container (they have so much extra batter, and Kurt is insisting they freeze rather than bake it)
“It’s fine,” Kurt says, and he’s got that weird closed-off smile, not the one that means he’s unhappy, just the one that means that he’s thinking.
“Have things been okay with Mike?”
“Hmm? Yeah,” Kurt nods, and moves to open the freezer. “We talked, we’re fine. It’s nice to hang out like this, though, thank you.”
“It was Blaine’s idea.” Tina snags the bag of chocolate chips and grabs a few out, and doesn’t miss the way Kurt’s eyebrows twitch. “Okay, Hummel, spill.”
“It’s really fine,” Kurt shakes his head, and takes the chocolate chips from her protesting hands, only to take a handful himself and then hand it back. “I’ve just been thinking about next year, when he’ll be on his own here.”
“He won’t be on his own. He’ll have us!”
Kurt laughs. “I know. I’m not pitying him, really.” He reaches over and dabs a bit of frosting out of Tina’s hair. “I swear, how do you even do this? It will be good for him, really. And for me. There’s - so much out there, for both of us to do. And I wish we could always be together for it, but, New York, Tina!
“Looking forward to getting out?” Tina grins, and munches more chocolate chips.
“You have no idea, Kurt sighs, and Tina knows that she probably doesn’t. Kurt’s always been a dreamer, in a different way than Rachel is, less demanding but more determined, somehow, and she knows he’s going to be great, whatever he does. “I just can’t wait to get out, and be somewhere new, and do new things -
Tina’s thoughts go to Mike, as Kurt rambles on, about the things Mike wants to do, about where he wants to do them, and where Tina will be for the twelve months that Mike’s somewhere far away. It doesn’t seem like a hardship, though, hearing Kurt talk with stars in his eyes about New York and the city and making his dreams come true. Mike has dreams, too; Tina’s watched him grow them, has fought him to make them happen, and it will be the best thing in the world when Mike is on his way to achieving them, because Tina will know that he’ll be happy, and that she helped him get there. She thinks about the cranes, carefully stowed in a big rubbermaid tub in her closet, and about taking Mike to the airport with his parents at the end of this summer, of kissing him and letting him go.
It hardly seems like even a bittersweet thing, listening to Kurt, and smiling when he beams at her. It seems like what she wants to happen.
*
Blaine’s dozing, full and contented, head nestled on Kurt’s shoulder and watching the credits scroll on the screen. Tina is curled up on Mike’s lap in the chair across the room, and it’s nice - he and Kurt do double-dateish things all the time with Finn and Rachel. That usually involves drama, which Blaine doesn’t mind, mostly, but it’s nice to just sit with Tina and Mike and relax.
“Alright, I need some more milk,” Tina declares, and hoists herself up and out of the chair. “Any of you guys want anything?”
“I am making you all eat carrot sticks. That was an unholy amount of cookies.” Kurt’s shoulder vibrates under Blaine’s ear as he speaks, and Blaine closes his eyes happily, but then Kurt moves and Blaine frowns because, no, warm Kurt-pillow -
“I’ll be right back,” Kurt smiles, and drops a throw pillow next to him. “If you can stay awake. Garlic hummus or roasted red pepper?
“Mm.” Blaine grabs the pillow and tucks it under his ear. “Red pepper please.”
“Is that good for you two?”
Mike and Tina nod their assent, and then Tina’s following Kurt into the kitchen and it’s just Blaine, slumped on the couch, and Mike, draped elegantly over the chair.
“Things have been a lot better,” Mike says, after a moment, and Blaine lifts his head up to look at him.
“Hmm?”
“With Kurt. I don’t think he’s scared of me anymore.”
“Oh. Good.” Blaine had been pretty sure things were going fine - Kurt had just given him a shrug and a smile and an “it’s okay” when he had asked - but it’s still nice to hear. “I’m glad. I didn’t think you guys would really have a problem.”
Mike shrugs. “I don’t think we did, really. Just a misunderstanding. And - things are starting to get weird around here anyway, I think we were both just kind of on edge.”
“Really?” Blaine kneads the pillow about a bit.
Mike nods. “With - college coming up. I think all the guys are feeling it. At least Kurt and I are lucky - we know what we want to do.”
“Yeah.” Blaine frowns, thinks again about next year, McKinley, life, without Kurt, and feels cold again. “I wish we were all graduating together, you know? That way I could just be in New York next year, with him, instead of stuck here.”
“Oh, it won’t be so bad,” Mike says easily, but Blaine knows he’s been thinking about it too; Mike may be quiet but he’s always thoughtful, and he’s seen Mike watching Tina in Glee club and knows he’s been watching Kurt the same way.
“What makes you say that?” It’s more petulant than Blaine means it to be, far more petulant than Blaine wants it to be, but maybe the seniors aren’t the only ones this is getting to.
“It’s only for a year. Not even the whole year - we’ll be so busy time is going to fly. And there’s Christmas and spring break, and we’ll be on skype all the time - not much will change, not really. Just where we are and what we’re doing.”
Blaine watches through the doorway into the kitchen, where he can see Kurt flitting about with Tina. Maybe he’s worrying too much about this. Maybe it really will be that easy - he and Kurt, they’re forever, he knows it, and keeping close while Kurt is in New York shouldn’t be that much harder than keeping close while he was at McKinley.
Kurt and Tina come back with the veggies; they put another movie in. Blaine’s still drifting in and out of a nap but Kurt is restless. Eventually, he gets his school bag and sits on the floor in front of Blaine and cleans it out, old tests and sheet music and dead pens and dull pencils, the refuse of high school life that even the immaculate Kurt Hummel can’t escape.
It’s as Kurt is cleaning out the front pocket and trying to blame the assorted wrappers and melted-together candy on Blaine that Blaine gets the idea, and then looks at Tina and knows how to make it happen.
*
The song is perfect and the performance is perfect; with them both playing to their own strengths Mike and Kurt are an oddly well-matched pair, and they sing and dance and charm everyone and even Santana doesn’t have anything nasty to say at the end of the number.
It feels less like a normal victory, though, when Kurt and Mike, flushed and smiling still, join Tina and Blaine outside of the auditorium to plan their victory double-date at Breadstix, and more like -
Blaine can’t even put a finger on it, until Kurt says something about some extra practice the seniors are having in their free period, and taps his phone off and gives Blaine a smile and then walks away, Mike at his side.
It feels like a cast party. An afterparty. The celebration of something ending.
Tina catches Blaine’s eye, and then his hand. “Want to come over after school again?”
Blaine nods. “Yeah.”
*
Behind the curtains on stage after practice, Kurt kisses Blaine and Blaine holds him a little too tightly. In the opposite wing, Tina comes off her heels to fix Mike’s hair, and kisses his cheek, and tells him to call her after practice. Later in a mirrored room, Tina hangs paper birds from fishing line, and tries not to feel the echo of the quiet too keenly. Across town, in his bedroom, Blaine creases gum wrappers, and tries not to look at a phone that won’t ring.