Work Text:
Blaine is confirming the final numbers for the Astoria project when he hears Sebastian talking to someone else just outside his cubicle. He saves his draft and pauses, not surprised when Sebastian's head pops into view.
"Grats, Anderson. It's a tough bid but I think you've got this one in the bag, man."
He isn't particularly excited about Sebastian's interest in his recent promotion, but the man has seniority and he wants very badly to knock his first project out of the park. "Thanks a lot. It was kind of a surprise, I mean it's only been a few months but, yeah, I'm really thrilled." He reaches down and adjusts his tie to hide a nervous fidget. Something about Sebastian Smythe makes his skin crawl.
"Hey, while I've got your undivided attention." Sebastian crosses one knee over the other and leans against Blaine's cubicle. "Dave's getting married this weekend, you know, Dave, inside sales? Anyway, I know you're new so this isn't, like, one of those weird things where you work somewhere for a week and they ask you to chip in for some random's birthday gift, but we're having a little bachelor thing for him Friday after work. I thought it might be a good chance to get a few drinks in you, get you bonding with the department. Interested?"
He really isn't. Rachel is in between jobs and he likes to get home from work as soon as he can to keep her company. They usually eat ice cream and watch a movie; it's a habit they've nurtured since high school. Aside from that, parties are not at all his thing, and drinking with coworkers is about as dangerous as drinking with coworkers who don't know really him and will make first impressions based off of his drunken behavior.
Then again, saying no might damage his reputation before he even has a reputation at all in this firm.
"Sounds like fun," he answers. "Email me the address and time and I'll be there."
"Fantastic." Sebastian looks at him a little too long before disappearing around the corner.
*
Blaine and Rachel had been high school sweethearts.
From the moment they met there had been a bubbly, instant, undeniable connection between them; Rachel had been a driven, ambitious girl with her sights set on a law degree and Blaine had wanted to go into business with just as much passion. They shared classes, extra-curricular activities, a love of musical theater and, in the end, a romance so predictable that even their parents weren't surprised when Blaine proposed to Rachel their freshman year at NYU business.
Heads had shook when Blaine had hinted that he might propose during their senior year of high school, but it seemed that college and their move to New York had stamped their relationship with a validation that high school simply could not provide.
Wes had been the only one who had questioned it at all, and that night still stands out in Blaine's memory as the oddest conversation he had ever had with his best friend.
They were set to move that weekend and Wes had taken him out for a goodbye drink.
"I have to ask," Wes had said, slurring because they were finally getting a good buzz going. "Are you sure? I mean, are you completely sure?" Blaine had told him weeks ago that he intended to get down on one knee outside of Tiffany's and propose.
The concept of not being sure about Rachel had literally never occurred to him. She had been his first and only girlfriend. He took a long swallow of his beer and then stared at Wes. "Of course, god, of course I'm sure. She's—she's my whole life, Wes."
"That's why I have to ask," Wes had replied.
It had made him uncomfortable and upset, but he hadn't wanted to taint their goodbye with that, so all he had said was, "I totally see where you're coming from, I really do. But no, man. I'm—I am completely sure about this."
*
Five years later he lands a sweet entry-level job at a firm on the Upper West Side due to a lucky series of events (a recommendation from a professor who is close personal friends with the manager of the department Blaine is trying to get into, a position opening up unexpectedly due to an employee needing to move across country that month, and a stellar first interview that he managed to completely own despite nerves).
He and Rachel got married in a small ceremony back in their hometown of Lima, Ohio and honeymooned in Paris.
Just after they came home, Rachel got her foot in the door at a family law firm.
Things seemed to be happening easily for them and they both breathed a little easier; between rent, tuition, the wedding, and the utter crappiness of their day jobs they were only months away from needing to ask family for help. Despite the fact that they both come from upper middle class families they'd had no desire to go down that road.
They are both independent, proud people; it's something that Blaine loves about her, about them, that they are both firm in their belief in the other's ability to succeed.
*
Over Chinese takeout that night, Blaine tells her about his plans for Friday. "I normally wouldn't, but I don't want to look unsociable the first time someone asks me to go out after work."
She's typing away at her laptop (most likely sending out her resume), her hair twisted into a bun and a pen between her teeth. Her baggy sweatshirt dips just a little farther down her shoulder and he smiles, staring fondly. "I'll survive. You've been awesome, babe, but I can go one Friday without movie night."
He digs around in his noodles for another pea pod. "I know you can." Her glasses are low on her nose. She is unbearably cute and he can't resist setting aside his food and sliding up next to her. "Hey, come here."
"Sec," she mutters, backspacing frantically and then sending off another email. "I'm coming off like a country bumpkin, I know it." The family law firm had informed her that the person she'd been covering for at work was indeed coming back after a stint on short-term disability and she'd taken it very personally.
"I'm gonna have to interrupt this pity party," he says in a mock-resigned tone, and begins tickling her.
"No!"
Moments later she cries uncle and he stops, sliding his arms around her waist. "I could reassure you with lots of nice words but how about we just go to bed?" He gives her a long look from beneath his eyelashes.
She smiles, eyes bright, and kisses him. "You win at husband."
*
He feels better about going out with Sebastian and the others once he has Rachel's approval. She'd even helped him pick out an outfit, something dressy enough to wear to work but comfortable enough to accommodate a party later.
When he arrives at the bar he takes his jacket off and tries to relax; it's difficult to just blend in as he always feels out of place in bars, despite wanting to have fun.
"Well hello," Sebastian says, sliding up beside him. "Looking good."
He can feel his face heat up in an unpleasant way. "Hey, um, I feel late or something, not seeing many familiar faces."
"I have to be honest with you," Sebastian says. "The bar thing was kind of a trap. I thought we'd have to stay here a little longer, loosen Dave up for transport, but he'd been drinking before he joined us, so we were able to move things along a little faster than anticipated."
"Move things?" Blaine isn't sure he likes where this is going. He'd expected a night of beer and pool and chicken wings.
"Yeah, see, Dave would never have agreed if he'd known we were taking him to a strip club. He's kind of the quiet type."
If Blaine had known that there was a strip club in the works he never would have agreed, but it's far too late to leave now. "So you stayed behind to make sure I was in the loop? You could've texted."
The briefest flash of irritation passes across Sebastian's expression. "Hey, sorry. You're right. I was just knocking back a few, didn't think anything of it. Come on, it's a few blocks over. I'll make it up to you. What's your poison?"
And so they walk and discuss alcohol. Which Blaine is now sure he is going to need if he's going to be forced to stare at half-naked strange women all night.
"I'll be in in a sec, need to make a call before I start drinking."
"Sure thing." Sebastian disappears inside.
He dials Rachel.
"Wow, having that much fun?" she answers. "I thought a drunk dial would come much later."
"Sadly, the fun has not started yet."
"That sucks," she replies, mouth full.
"You're eating the rum raisin, aren't you? I knew you had a reason to want me out of the house."
"You can't deny our love. It is based on a mutual appreciation of saturated fat."
He laughs. "Anyway. I thought this was gonna be beer and pool, but it turns out it's a bachelor party strip club event."
She snorts. "Uh-huh."
"I just wanted to let you know, okay?"
"Noted," she sighs. "I don't care, Blaine. Just have fun. If you need some help getting home let me know."
God, she is amazing. "I love you," he says.
"Love you too. But the ice cream is melting. I must away."
He switches his phone to vibrate and walks down the short stairway to the door of the club. He doesn't even note the name or look around. If he's going to be cool about this he has to start now, otherwise when he starts to drink he'll make a complete ass out of himself. And it's not as if he's never been to a strip club.
The guys are standing in a circle near the bar and Dave, a stocky handsome guy, is in the middle. He's laughing and red-faced and obviously drunk already.
"We gotta slow you down, buddy, the night hasn't even started yet," one of the guys says, and then makes room as Blaine joins the circle.
"Congrats, man," Blaine says, smiling hugely, and shakes Dave's hand. "Next round's on me, consider it your gift."
"Blaine, right? Awesome. This is awesome."
It takes him about three seconds of looking around to realize what has been bothering him since he ducked inside.
There is not a single female in sight.
*
He begins to drink. Heavily. He hangs his jacket on the back of a bar chair and loosens his tie and the collar of his shirt.
One of the finance guys, Tom or Trent or Trevor or something, leans over and says in his ear, "You didn't know Dave was gay?"
He really doesn't want to admit that he knows absolutely nothing about Dave. It seems silly, seeing as how he was invited to the guy's bachelor party, but what choice does he have? "Uh, no. It's really politically incorrect of me but I just assumed—" He knocks back a swallow of whiskey. "God, I'm an asshole."
"It's okay," Dave says, and Blaine wants to die of embarrassment when he realizes he's been talking way too loudly. "You didn't run out the door screaming, so props to you."
He wants to say, really you are too drunk to care either way, man, but all he lets escape is, "No, I'm. I'm sorry, it was so uncool of me to assume. How long have you been with your fiancé?"
"Two years now. We met at a conference. Totally clichéd, I know, but—anyway, I'm a lucky guy."
"That's awesome. Really awesome. Can I get you another?"
"Nah, I think—I'm drunk enough." He laughs.
Blaine can't help but look around. It's kind of embarrassing. There are bulky men everywhere in various states of undress, some on stage and some on poles and some giving lap dances under smoke and lights and cigarette smell.
He never really got what was so exciting about the Chippendale look (at least, Rachel never seemed to go for it), but he always chalked that up to jealousy; the fact that he himself is a small guy and could never pack on the bulk or muscle that other college guys seemed to be able to has always bothered him, he guesses. He's always been more of a video game kind of guy and when he'd felt like doing something physical it was jogging or cycling or swimming. One summer he and Rachel had taken jazz lessons and that had been incredibly fun.
He's not quite sure why he feels so uncomfortable, though.
At some point during the night the inevitable occurs; someone buys Dave a lap dance and they all have to stand around and cheer and mock. The dancer gives it his all, embarrassing the hell out of Dave and doing things that seem borderline strip club illegal to Blaine, who cheers along with everyone else but inside feels desperately out of place.
The dancer teases them all in turn. To take his mind off of it, Blaine watches other groups of patrons in the club. There are also a few men who are obviously there alone, nursing drinks and staring quietly at the bodies on display.
They all sort of look the same, the dancers. He wonders if they are mostly gay or straight. He'd read somewhere that most male dancers were straight.
On the farthest mini-stage from where Blaine's group is sitting, a gold light comes on. He only notices it, really, because the stage is empty and the light had been a sharp blue moments before. Something is announced over the loudspeaker but he can't make it out over the music.
The gold light flashes off, then on, then off again, and there is a pause before it comes on one last time.
The performer is pale and slender, clad in cowboy boots, underwear, and a cowboy hat that are all the same color as the light. He turns to face the audience and Blaine notices that his body is covered in gold glitter, as well. It seems almost out of place on him, but then he twists his shoulders back into the pole he is leaning against and tilts his chin up; his hips swish softly from side to side, slender and flat, and everything, literally everything on him shimmers and catches the light.
Blaine stares, drink halfway to his mouth and forgotten.
At first, the dancer seems young, but Blaine realizes after a moment that it's just because he's smaller than the others. Not shorter, just thinner, with a body that makes Blaine think of a ballet dancer—heavily muscled and broad in certain places, unusually slender in others.
A country song that's been twisted around a poppy beat begins, and the dancer goes into a routine that seems both practiced and personalized; he has a cute little grin and a sassy attitude, and he spins and twists and bends around the pole and at the edge of the stage.
A small crowd builds up and he begins collecting bills in a swishy fashion, giving the onlookers swings of his crotch and ass in a coy sort of way, never letting anyone touch him. He slides across the stage on his back all the way to the edge, dipping his head over to allow one man to put money under his cowboy hat. He wriggles up out of the position to his knees, arched and sweaty, then springs onto his feet and finds the pole again.
It's not that his routine is any less sexual than the others', but there's something bright about it, and it's not just the glitter.
Blaine realizes that the ice in his drink has melted and several of the men in his party are starting to drift toward the door.
He glances back just in time to see the dancer take his hat off, neatly keeping the money inside as he bends to wink and blow a kiss to his audience; his face is almost elfish, cheekbones and ears high and sharp. Blaine's eyes drift, and he allows himself to take in the dancer's hard, strong body. His attitude had bordered on effeminate when he'd been dancing, but there's really nothing feminine about him on second glance. His wide shoulders and strong arms and tapered, powerful back couldn't be mistaken for a girl's body in any light. Not to mention the swell of his dick in those tight underwear.
And then he's gone, just like that, and the light goes off.
Blaine shakes his head. What's gotten in to him? He swallows his watered-down drink with a grimace and goes back to the bar.
"See something you like?" the bartender asks.
Blaine blinks. "Oh," he blurts. "No, I—I'm not, you know."
The bartender gives him an odd look and asks, "Another? Whiskey straight this time?"
"No, thanks, I'm just about ready to leave. Could you tell me—what's the kid's name?" He motions toward the stage.
"Porcelain. He goes on the same time Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. He's also not a kid." The bartender smirks, sliding a water over to Blaine. "But I can see why you'd think that. He looks like a kitten compared to the rest of these bulldogs. Look, my name's Will. If you need anything while you're here just let me know."
Blaine feels that he's somehow sent the wrong message, but there's no point in pursuing the issue. The guy seems nice enough. He leaves a pretty sizable tip in the tip jar, chugs the water, uses the men's room, then rejoins his co-workers at the door.
Dave has a dildo sticking out of his jacket pocket, is covered in glitter, and is utterly trashed, relying on three guys to keep him upright.
Sebastian grins and throws an arm around Blaine's shoulders. "You okay, Anderson? Need me to get you a cab?"
The truth is, he's sobered up almost entirely. He'd only had a few too many earlier in the night. "Nah, I'm good for public transportation. I had a good time, thanks for the invite."
"You're a stand-up guy," Sebastian says, punching him lightly on the shoulder. "See you on Monday."
*
He tries to fall into bed, but Rachel moans and swats at him, half-asleep. "Shower shower shower, go. You smell like a brewery."
He almost falls asleep in the shower. When he joins Rachel she rolls over into his chest and he wraps his arms around her.
"Fun?" she mutters, tucking her head up under his chin.
"Um, I guess." He exhales into her soft hair and runs one hand down her back. The curve of her waist tapering down to her hip distracts him, and he feels himself twitch a little. "Hey, hey."
"Mm?" He pulls her close and begins kissing her neck. "Oh, hello," she mutters sleepily, and he kisses her and rolls over on top of her.
*
Months pass without a single conscious thought about the bachelor party.
Unconscious ones, however, are another matter. He never quite dreams of anything explicit, but he wakes up feeling like he'd been somewhere else, someone else, and he can't deny that the dancer from the club has something to do with it.
He has this nagging feeling that there had been something different about the slender man, something curious and special that he should know about, that he should be familiar with. It's a stupid way to phrase it, but he feels almost infatuated, a butterflies in the stomach sensation that comes before you take the plunge and try to get to know someone better.
It's so stupid. He's not even—he's not, and he doesn't understand why he suddenly has that word woven in amongst his thoughts, why he has drawn some connection between it and that dancer.
And god, he hates strip clubs. Even if he were to take the time to go, to watch Porcelain dance, what would it accomplish?
It's not as if he'd ever get anything else out of it, and what if someone recognized him, someone from work, what would they think? How could he possibly justify a second trip by himself to a male strip club?
He'd have to lie to Rachel. The thought makes his stomach twist.
*
He waits. He waits in the hopes that the dancer will have quit. He waits, hoping that he'll forget, that he'll stop feeling.
But eventually thinking about it takes up more time than he can justify, even to himself. He tells Rachel that he has plans with a work friend and he goes to the club (the address is still in his phone from months before) so that he arrives just as Porcelain is set to go on. He has no interest in the other dancers and so, despite being propositioned eight times before he reaches the right stage, he avoids almost all interaction.
A floating waiter comes by and takes his drink order. He sips the whiskey as Porcelain's body is illuminated on stage, this time in white. He's wearing white underwear, silver glitter, and feathered angel wings. It should look stupid. Instead it's just gorgeous, the snowy white colors in combination with his spiked, styled hair and his pale skin is literally breathtaking.
It's stifling in the club. Blaine takes off his suit jacket and loosens his tie. He sucks a piece of ice into his mouth in the hopes of cooling off.
The dancer moves like liquid across the stage, bending and arching and opening himself in ways that Blaine could not imagine moving himself. He does things to that pole that would make even the most over-sexed person blush. He crawls across the stage on all fours, bending and tossing his head, his back flexing like a cat's, and Blaine notices that he's wearing white eyeliner, pale lip gloss, and blush high on his cheeks.
He stops in front of Blaine on his hands and knees, breathing a little rapidly, ass up in the air and angel wings spread behind him. "Like what you see, honey?"
And it's only then that Blaine realizes that he's sitting right in front of the stage, that this beautiful man is talking to him. He guesses that this is his cue and slides a five dollar bill from his wallet.
Porcelain grins, eyes a little wild as he leans over and takes the bill between his teeth. He winks, wiggles coyly, and then continues crawling across the stage.
Blaine's heart is pounding. He can't feel his fingers.
He is in trouble.
*
He goes back. He loses track of how many times. Each time Porcelain is in a different outfit, and each time the cheesy set-up proves to be creative and sexy in ways that it should not be. Each time he sits in the same spot, drinks the same drink, gives the same amount of money. He can't even admit to himself that he's becoming a regular. The thought of being a regular at a strip club makes him sick to his stomach. Objectification isn't something that should be endorsed, he tells himself. But he can't stay away.
Porcelain treats him more or less like every other customer. But after several weeks of the same routine, something changes.
He throws his bare legs over the edge of the stage and it's all Blaine can do to tear his eyes away from the black corset that is hugging the man's tiny waist. "Tell me, short dark and handsome. Do I have a fan?" Mockery and praise always seem to go hand in hand at the club.
Blaine already has the money in his hand, but this time he doesn't offer it. "What makes you think that?"
Porcelain twists and spreads, looking over his shoulder at Blaine. "Same bat time, same bat channel?"
"Do you think I'm stalking you?"
Porcelain laughs. "Baby, I think I'd pay you to stalk me. Come give me a kiss."
He knows what that means, having seen it happen before. Shaking, he puts the money between his lips. Porcelain leans over, closes his lips around the other end of the folded bill, and they are so close, he can smell sweat and makeup and hair product and something dizzying and spicy that is distinctly personal before he even notices Porcelain's gorgeous face just an inch from his. He can taste the man's breath.
Those blue-green eyes, Jesus.
The dancer pulls back, mouth curled sweetly upward. "My number one fan," he breathes, and crawls back onto the stage and is gone again.
*
These little exchanges become normal. Eventually, Porcelain finds him almost immediately and gives him just the smallest amount of extra attention. Blaine can't help but become excited, but he tries to reason with himself that it has more to do with steady custom than preference. The guy must see dozens of faces every day; why remember Blaine's?
And if he goes home vibrating and tense, Rachel is there.
This only makes him feel worse.
One night she comments as they are watching some awful reality television show, "You're working a lot of unpaid overtime."
"Downside of the job," he replies, tightening his arm around her. "I'm sorry. Should I rearrange something at work?"
"I'm going back for a second interview tomorrow and I'm feeling really positive about it. I'll be busy, too, then, if I get the job, and I guess I won't notice as much. Don't worry about it. I just hate to think that they're taking advantage of you."
God, what the fuck is he doing?
*
One evening he arrives and Porcelain doesn't come on as scheduled.
He thinks that this is finally it, that the dancer has quit or called in sick and he is just going to leave because this has been a terrible idea and he has no idea why he is still doing it. God, he is failing himself and Rachel at every turn, what is he thinking?
And then a full drink is dangled across his line of sight.
He looks up, and Porcelain is standing there in what might be a cat suit and a pair of cat ears on his head. He has whiskers painted on his face. "Refill?" His throat closes up. The dancer drops gracefully onto the small table between the chairs, kneeling, head tilted. A fake, fluffy tail whips out behind him.
"Thank you," is all Blaine can get out. He takes the drink, knocks it back with a shudder, and then sets the glass aside.
"So here's the deal, gorgeous. You've been awfully good to me. Can I interest you in some one on one?"
"You mean a lap dance?"
"Well I didn't mean dinner and a show," the dancer replies, rising high on his knees and reaching out, placing one hand on either side of Blaine's thighs in the chair. Not touching, but close enough to feel the solidity and warmth of skin.
"What about your...?" Blaine motions toward the stage.
"Don't worry about that, sweetness. Yes or no?"
"H-how much?"
Porcelain mutters a number but Blaine is already nodding before he even really hears it. He has no fucking clue what he's doing; he just wants more attention from this guy and he can't see any other way to get it but to play along.
He wants to feel something more than the physical, but it's difficult; Porcelain is warm and so very male around him, shaking and wiggling and pressing but only just, giving him a damned fine show of limber movements and sharp, sensual turns. He dips close, mouth and hands almost skimming Blaine's, leaving Blaine arching in his chair and breathing heavily.
The foggy dimness of the club goes to his head; his world shrinks to just the man in front of him, dark and feline, and the low bass line of the music throbs in time with his pulse. He feels dizzy and slow and desperate.
It feels like it might go on forever, but then suddenly the air is cooler and Porcelain is drifting back against the table, subtly scooping up his money. He stands, so smooth and careful it's like the motion is just another step of the dance, and leans over to press a kiss to Blaine's cheek.
"Until next time?" he whispers, rough and breathless.
"Yes—yeah. Thank you."
He drifts off yet again, leaving Blaine hanging on the edge of the chair.
There's really no denying it any longer.
He sits in a stall in the men's room of the club until his erection goes away and he is so fucking wrecked by his inability to ignore what's right in front of him that he actually fucking cries. Desperation turns to anger in short time, and he growls and punches the stall wall until his knuckles bleed.
*
He doesn't go back for a long time.
It's odd, how quickly something can appear and unravel everything you thought you knew about yourself. It's like being stuck in a time warp while everything untouched by this oddity in his life continues spinning around him in a perfectly normal pattern.
Rachel quietly asks him if maybe he needs to talk to someone about the depression he seems to have fallen into. He kisses her and kisses her and shakes his head and tries to convince her that he just needs some time off, that he's just stressed and isn't taking care of himself.
"So ask for a few days off," she says, stroking his hair, and god he loves her so much. "Do you need a weekend, do you need golf? If you need golf we can go buy clubs right now. I'll even buy you those hideous pants and I promise I won't crack up laughing until after you're gone."
He laughs, eyes wet, so grateful for her sense of humor right now. "I don't think I'm quite at the needing golf stage of my life just yet."
And he hates it, because she is such a good wife, and he is—he isn't who he used to be.
*
He does take a weekend in Connecticut to visit one of his high school buddies, but he’s not quite sure what it accomplishes. The source of his disquiet is something that he carries with him, and going home only brings him closer to the catalyst. He likes to pretend that he can just stop thinking about Porcelain, but a week after coming back to New York he finds himself getting off at the subway station closest to the club with a pocket full of small bills.
He’s had to limit himself to once a week visits. For both his sanity and his credibility at home and most importantly his wallet; lap dances aren’t cheap and frankly he’s scraping the bottom of the barrel as it is. He’s had to start skipping lunch and morning coffee just to afford the extra-curricular activity. He refuses to use their “common pot” money for this. He hasn’t sunk quite that low yet.
The facade that he is just a random customer is no longer required. He travels unmolested to Porcelain’s area, whether it’s for a lap dance or to watch the man perform. Most of the time it’s a performance. There are some weeks that Blaine just doesn’t have the cash for a lap dance.
This evening when he arrives Porcelain is actually with another customer.
He isn’t stupid enough to think the man has any attachment to him, so he sits and waits his turn patiently. He nurses half a tumbler of bourbon before Porcelain notices him.
“Baby, you are as reliable as death and taxes but in a much nicer way,” he says, swinging around to sit on Blaine’s lap.
He’s never done that before. Blaine immediately starts to sweat, but he doesn’t want to look nervous. “Hey, gimme a chance to get comfortable.” He takes off his jacket, but Porcelain’s hands are already on his tie, wiggling the knot and tugging it loose.
“Calvin Klein?”
He raises an eyebrow, grinning. “Good eye.”
He wants so badly to be witty, but this amazing creature is in his lap and he just can’t think straight. There’s something feverish about Porcelain’s expression that makes him instantly giddy.
“Good lots of things, don’t you think?” is the flirtatious response.
It’s one thing to participate through reaction; being a customer makes that easy. It’s another thing entirely to engage and, god, he can’t deny now that he wants to. He wants to so badly.
“There’s no doubt about that,” he replies. A wicked thrill shoots through him.
“Where’ve you been, huh?” Porcelain lightly rests his cheek against Blaine’s shoulder. “I pined. I pined horribly.”
And god, he knows it’s just put on flirtation, and he knows it’s pathetic, but he can’t resist. “Do you have some time for me later?” He’s never purchased a private show before but he has some extra cash and he needs a little more attention than a lap dance in the middle of the club can provide.
“Sure thing. After I do my twirl.” Porcelain slips him a card with a number on it and points toward the back rooms. “Stay warm while I’m gone,” he adds, grinning and winking and giving a Blaine another kiss on the cheek. His lap feels naked when the dancer leaves it.
For the first time he almost doesn’t even notice Porcelain’s routine. He can’t stop glancing nervously at the back rooms. There’s a huge, intimidating bouncer guarding the entrance, and Blaine guesses that without the card he’d been given he wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near it.
The minutes tick by like hours.
Finally, Porcelain disappears backstage and Blaine turns in his card to the surly bouncer. “First time?” he asks.
It must be pretty obvious. “Uh, yeah.”
“Nothing goes on back there that doesn’t go on out here. No touching, no fooling around. You just get a little privacy. One wrong move and we’ll be on you like white on rice. Understood?”
“Absolutely,” he answers.
The bouncer glances at his card. “That kid could kick your ass, anyway, but you remember what I said.” He’s grinning, and Blaine can’t take it personally. Everyone seems to think pretty highly of Porcelain.
He walks nervously down the hall and finds the door marked number eight. It’s better and worse inside the room; better because he can relax away from the crowd in the club, worse because he’s going to be alone with the man that’s been haunting his thoughts for months.
It’s little bigger than a walk-in closet, with a couch and a table and an iPod set in a speaker base. The walls are black. Hell, everything is black except for a few pillows, and the only light comes from weak electric candles that are scattered everywhere. It’s exactly what you’d expect from a not-too-gross strip club back room.
Porcelain appears through an all but hidden door panel in the back, and the first thing Blaine notices is that he’s changed. He smells like cologne. He’s wearing a silk robe.
Oh. Oh.
“I was going to select something from my fabulous assortment of costumes, but then I thought you might have a preference?”
Oh, god.
He swallows heavily. “I—I like you in that. Maybe, um, just briefs underneath?”
Porcelain’s eyes flash. He smiles. “Already done, in that case. Drink?”
“No, thank you, I just, um.”
Porcelain bends over the iPod and selects the music, something low and sexy with no lyrics, just a beat and some instrumental background. The moment the music begins to play his body twitches into it, just the slightest motion of his hips and shoulders.
Blaine begins to sweat and shifts anxiously on the couch.
“Alone at last,” Porcelain says and turns, dancing toward him. He stops when their legs brush.
Blaine stares up at him; his skin is completely free of makeup and glitter and his hair is styled only a little, perhaps a handful of mousse and nothing more. It is non-existent compared to the amount of gel that Blaine has to use to tame his hair in the morning. And he’s warm. Jesus, he is so warm and so real and right there, all bedroom eyes and a kissable mouth.
“God, you’re beautiful,” Blaine exhales. He’s never said anything like that to another man. But they’re alone, and suddenly it feels completely different. He still laughs at himself, though. “You must hear that all day long."
Porcelain moves to the music and Blaine stares at his gyrating, silk-clad hips. “You are adorable, shush.” He leans over, breathing warm and quick against Blaine’s ear. “Help me with this?” The sash on his robe dangles enticingly forward. Biting back a noise, Blaine tugs the belt until it comes undone, and then inhales sharply as long lines of pale skin are revealed.
Of course, it’s not that simple; Porcelain draws back and teases him a lot, showing skin and then hiding it, dancing around, using the table and the couch to bend over and rub against. Eventually he does come closer again, sprawling over Blaine’s lap, at one point even straddling it and sitting on his thighs.
There’s no way to hide the erection tenting his slacks or the sweat at his collar and armpits and temples.
Porcelain dances away again, and then wanders back. “Let’s loosen you up, hm?” he says, reaching out and taking Blaine by the tie, using it to tug him upright and to the edge of the couch.
Fuck.
He undoes Blaine’s tie and slides it from around his neck, low whisper of cloth on cloth and a small noise from Blaine’s throat as Porcelain’s fingers undo the button at his collar and two more below it. He tries to calm down, hands fluttering uselessly on the couch cushions. He’s never been intimate with anyone but Rachel and this is, this is—
“You’re not much of a talker, are you?” Porcelain says, rolling his shoulders; the silk robe slides off of them. He turns, and Blaine stares at the way his shoulder blades move, the way they connect to his neck. The muscles of his upper arms flex.
“Is that weird? I’ve—never done this before," Blaine replies, eyes never leaving him. “Why ramble when I could just look at you instead?”
Almost as if it were a reward for the good answer, the robe slides off completely, catching hips on the way down but for just a second, revealing what seems like endless milky skin, broken up only by a smattering of freckles across one shoulder.
Blaine exhales. He follows that smooth line down the tapered waist to a perfectly rounded ass, then down long, muscled legs. His erection literally throbs in his pants; he can feel the swollen head nudge his zipper. No one has ever made him feel this way, male or female. All at once he prays that this show has an end and that said end is near, because he doesn’t think he’s going to make it much longer without embarrassing himself.
Porcelain turns, watching him with smoky, warm blue eyes. “You like what you see.” It’s not a question.
Blaine can’t break the eye contact. “You know I do.”
Porcelain's eyes travel his body. Blaine knows that he’s obviously hard. He tells himself that it’s just professional habit when Porcelain’s tongue darts out to wet his mouth just once as his eyes pass over the tent in Blaine’s pants.
Their time is coming to an end.
He gets one more cheeky flash of the curve of Porcelain’s buttock before the skin is covered again. The dancer shimmies over to him, smiling as he loops the abandoned tie around his neck and draws him in.
“I have had a lovely time,” he says, so close that Blaine could kiss him if he wanted to.
He wants to. “Thank you,” he says, feeling stupid and awkward. “You were wonderful.”
Porcelain looks down again, and then up, cheeks flushed. “I’ll tell Ken to give you a few minutes to yourself?”
Oh, god, no.
“No—no, there’s no need.”
Porcelain’s mouth twists into a sexy little smirk. “Oh, I would disagree with you there.”
He tries to laugh, but it’s strained. “That’s very thoughtful of you, but I’m fine.”
“Your game, sugar,” he says, shrugging, and kisses Blaine’s cheek. “Next week? Can I jot you down in my little black book for a private party?”
“I’d like that.”
He’s oddly numb all the way home, and then he gets there and finds a note on the refrigerator: “Dinner with a client, there’s casserole in the oven, love you! R”. There’s a tiny gold sticker just after the initial.
His chest hurts. He smells like cigarettes and booze and sweat.
He collapses into bed and grinds himself between his hand and the mattress until he comes in his underwear, gasping and twitching. He expects it to feel like something more than that, but in the end it's just a vacuum, desperate and gaping and unavoidable, right at the center of his chest.
*
The company Christmas party is probably the fanciest event they’ve attended since college graduation. Rachel looks stunning in her evening gown, and Blaine has gone all out with a tuxedo. The food is excellent and the music full of variety. They have a blast dancing together and the envious looks that his co-workers keep casting Rachel make him feel like the luckiest guy in the room.
It’s just a shame that Rachel can’t stay. She has to travel for work tomorrow and needs to be at the airport early in the morning. He and Rachel always have fun when they get a little drunk and dance (they spent a good portion of their senior year of high school and freshman year of college drinking too much and making asses out of themselves at karaoke), so he spends half the night pouting at her and playfully plying her with drinks.
God, he just loves being with her; she’s so graceful and so fucking beautiful.
“If I’m going to catch a cab I’d better leave now,” she says, finally, and it’s true, they are sort of pushing the clock.
“Aw, okay.” He nuzzles his face into her neck and clings. “It won’t be any fun without you, though.”
“Bah. Go play with your friends.” She kisses him for a long time, though, and only after several aborted goodbyes does he let her go. He watches until she’s safely inside the cab and then heads back inside.
His friends aren’t so much interested in him as much as interested in getting him stupidly drunk.
Hours later he’s stumbling blearily down the hallway they’d pushed him out onto, and for some reason the key card that had been in his wallet is tucked behind his ear. His tux is a mess and his hair is fighting the dome of gel he’d applied earlier, every lock and twist bending toward freedom.
He falls several times and uses the walls and some potted plants to force himself upright.
He’s a dozen attempts into trying to get the plastic card into the door slot when he hears Sebastian come up behind him.
“And—Ander—Blaine! My man.”
“Sebastian,” he says, and it comes out with about six extra syllables but it comes out and he’s damned proud. “I am so fucking drunk.”
Sebastian giggles and helps him stand straighter. He makes grabby hands. “Gimme—key. I’ll help.”
“Kay,” he says, and by some miracle the door opens. “You are so good, shit, look at that.”
“I am good, I am.” He stumbles. “Can I use your—gotta piss so bad.”
“Sure.” He falls onto the bed face first and sprawls. He doesn’t care if Sebastian cares. He doesn’t even remember to close the door.
And then all of the sudden Sebastian has rolled him over onto his back. “You’re gonna drown in vomit.”
“Not true,” he says, trying to bring the man into focus. He keeps moving and blurring around the edges.
Sebastian kneels between his spread thighs and in one clumsy motion falls onto him and begins rubbing against his neck. “God, you are so hot.”
“Um,” he says. For the space of one second he is completely freaked out and strangely curious at the same time, and then he remembers that it’s Sebastian, for fuck’s sake; he hates the little shit. “No. No no no.”
“Oh, come on,” Sebastian drawls, and his legs are hugging Blaine’s waist and his body is heavy and hard and pressing Blaine into the bed.
It feels good, he can’t deny it; physically good, in a completely compartmentalized way. He likes Sebastian’s hard body, likes how he feels small against him, likes the way it feels to press his very interested cock (as interested as it can be when he’s this drunk anyway) against the other man’s stomach. But he fucking can’t stand the guy, and that wins out in the end.
“Okay, off, off, off.”
Sebastian groans. He kisses Blaine’s neck, then his ear, wet and quick and, if Blaine is honest, it's really, really fucking hot. “You’re such a goddamned tease." He reaches between them and cups Blaine through his pants, tracing the thick outline of the shaft. “Knew you were hot for it from the minute I saw you.” His dick is screaming at him to let Sebastian have what it wants. That hand moves, stroking him to half-mast in the blink of an eye. “Fuck, just let me blow you.”
He can’t remember the last time he’d come without feeling guilty; whether it was masturbation with Porcelain in his mind’s eye or with Rachel as a result of the tension created by Porcelain at the strip club. It would feel so good to just come, to just not think about it and let someone else wring it out of him, someone he doesn't care about, so easy now that they are drunk and stupid and forgetful.
But it’s wrong, all wrong. It feels skewed and dirty and he hates this guy.
“Stop,” he growls, and pushes Sebastian off of him.
“You’re such an asshole. Fuck,” Sebastian hisses, and storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
And all Blaine can see behind his eyelids between flares of light and color is Porcelain’s face.
*
“How was your Christmas?” he asks.
Porcelain gives his drink a swirl and hands it across the table. “Merry and bright, love. Are you hungry?”
“Actually, yeah, I am. Cheeseburger? Share it with me?”
He gets a dubious look, but fifteen minutes later they’re sitting on the couch in the back room sharing ketchup and a bacon cheeseburger.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to turn some music on and…?”
Blaine stares at Porcelain, still robe-clad, only tonight he has a spot of ketchup on his lip and there is just something more relaxed about him. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I just—well, I’m still paying you for your time. Do you mind me eating it up with pointless conversation?”
Those blue-green eyes bore into his. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but no. It’s been a long week. I could use some cholesterol and a break. Just don’t tell my boss.”
At first, Porcelain is reluctant to say anything about his personal life. Blaine knows that it’s against the rules, and he is fully aware of how ridiculous it is to pay for companionship and call it genuine, but he likes this guy, and somehow it’s all worth it when he can keep those doubts quiet and just enjoy it.
“My work schedule has seriously ramped up since the cold weather broke. I work in building development,” he injects. “Between that and trying to maintain a personal life, I’m—really stressed.”
“I just finished my finals,” Porcelain says, sipping a glass of lemon water and then sitting back against the couch cushions. There is a beat of awkward silence, as if he realizes that he’s just crossed a boundary, and then he squares his shoulders and goes on. “I kicked ass. But I’m freaking exhausted.”
"You're a dancer, aren't you?" Blaine asks.
"However did you guess?" Cheeky smile.
"No," he laughs. "I mean you're a dancer at school. Ballet? Modern? Jazz?"
Porcelain watches him, then puts down his water glass. "We shouldn't go too far with this, honey."
Blaine sighs. "It's stupid. I know." He looks away, feeling his face heat up.
"Hey," Porcelain says, reaching out and touching his arm. "I'm off-script already here. Way off. I just—I have to ask, while we're sharing and caring." He taps Blaine's wedding ring lightly. "You've never hid this. Why not? Most men do."
"Why lie?" he asks, pulling away a little. "I'm obviously clueless." His voice actually cracks there, and he stops.
"Let me get you a drink. Then we can just listen to music or something until your time is up, okay?" Porcelain says, standing. "I can bore you with my rehearsal playlist."
*
Rachel asks for details and he realizes fully and for the first time that there is a limit to how far he can take this before it begins to spiral out of control.
They're having dinner out one Saturday and she looks at him over dessert and asks, "So what are you working on this week?" He names a project, and then she stares at him, confused, and says, "Wasn't that the one you finished last week?" She wipes her mouth with a napkin. "Blaine, is...something up? Every time I ask about work you get all tense and closed off. That never used to happen before. Do you hate it? Do you want to quit and go back for your music teaching degree? I know we decided that it was impractical, but..." She sighs and sits up straight. "I think I've got some upward mobility at this firm, and if you wanted to go back to school I would be completely behind it."
He clenches his jaw to keep the tears from welling up. He is a scumbag. And thinking that means nothing, because all he does is continue on being one, going to see Porcelain every week and even having stupid desperate thoughts about Sebastian because it's his only possible outlet and for the first time in his life he wants, he just wants something else and it makes no sense and it rips his chest open when he least expects it and—
Fuck.
He wants to be someone else, just for a little while.
*
"The first one. Definitely. No, no, I mean it, not just because it was the first one but because it was the best, you just lit up."
Porcelain fiddles with the iPod, mouth screwed up thoughtfully. "But I spent so much time on the other one."
"Believe me. The first."
"Awesome. So I have my choice. Now I just have four hours to get it right."
"Wait, this is due tomorrow?" Blaine laughs. "God, what are you doing here?"
"Working?" That sassy eyebrow. "NYADA isn't cheap, you know."
Silence. "NYADA, huh?"
Porcelain sighs. Cat's out of the bag. "Yes, I attend NYADA. My—my dad passed away last year. Heart attack. The family business was helping to pay for my tuition, but a lot of that got eaten up by funeral costs. My step-mom is a nurse and she can't really help. My step-brother took over the garage and he's trying to get on his feet, so it's mostly just me myself and my scholarships floating the boat at the moment."
"I'm sorry to hear that." Blaine just stares at him, awed and infatuated and sad all at once. "The dancing pays well?"
"Oh, yes," Porcelain answers, laughing. He is obviously glad not to continue the conversation about his father. The grief is clearly still fresh.
"Do you enjoy it?"
He tilts his head. "You are adorable, have I ever told you that?" He takes a breath. "Would you judge me if I said yes? It keeps me limber and I kind of like the attention. The money is also a huge bonus."
"Not at all. It's—there's nothing to be ashamed of."
Porcelain leans close, brushing the curve of Blaine's ear with his lips. "Adorable. Again."
Dizzy, Blaine blurts out, "That big guy out there did threaten me at one point...something about no touching?"
"You make this very difficult," Porcelain says, warm and low against his ear. "Have you ever...? With a guy." He kisses just under Blaine's ear and Blaine literally shivers and has to swallow a noise back it feels so good.
"N-no, this—one of my co-workers tried to—drunk sex, company Christmas party, but no—"
The kisses fall softly, one by one, down to the edge of his shirt collar and back. "Let me dance for you," Porcelain breathes.
"Um, okay." He kind of can't think around the haze of hard now so hard need to touch him that has settled around his ears.
Porcelain is wearing a corset under the robe; Blaine feels his brain go just a little wobbly at the sight. It cuts tight at the waist, creating a delicious shape, but it's the criss-cross laces down the back and the dangling ties that tickle all the way past Porcelain's ass that make him squirm to the edge of the couch.
He straddles Blaine's knees, facing away, and works his ass slowly, slowly back into Blaine's lap.
Blaine inhales sharply, reaches up and grabs the dangling laces. "Christ," he hisses, as Porcelain's ass rubs against his crotch. The way the corset pinches the muscle and skin of his back is positively lewd; Blaine can't take his eyes off of the squeeze and stretch, the way the flesh of his ass spills out of the bottom of the corset and just fucking flares, as if it's begging to be cupped and squeezed.
Porcelain is sweating a little, and there's a fine sheen of sweat across the back of his neck.
This is about as close to drag as Porcelain has ever gone; he's wearing thigh-high fishnets and garters and lacy underwear that come high up on his thighs, but even with that it's not really feminine on him. He's too damned masculine in many small, delicious ways for it to be feminine.
His shoulder blades rise above the top of the corset and his neck rolls with the beat of the music and then he turns and gives Blaine a hot little look over his shoulder, grinning, eyelashes low and cheeks flaming red. He rocks and grinds into Blaine, letting Blaine have some control over it via the straps but only just.
Blaine is hard in his pants and the sweet curve of that ass stroking him through the cloth is enough to drive him crazy.
Porcelain sits on his lap, long legs folding on either side.
Blaine stares at the cut of the briefs, at the criss-cross pattern of the stockings up to his thick, hard thighs. He knows that the dancers usually wearing padding in their underwear for protection and also to maintain the illusion that they are more interested in the proceedings than they probably are, but Porcelain usually doesn't do that with him in private. If that's the case tonight, well—he certainly is interested.
Blaine can't help himself; he slides his fingers along the slick the material (it's not real leather but that doesn't matter), tracing it all the way around Porcelain's waist. His fingertips find the laces and trace them down the bend of Porcelain's spine.
The dancer breathes a little faster, hair crazy and spiked from sweat and product, and writhes a little higher up on Blaine's thighs, and if he isn't aroused he's doing a damned good job of pretending that he is.
"You work so hard for me," Blaine says roughly. "So hard, so fucking beautiful."
Porcelain bites his lip and slides one hand into Blaine's hair and pulls him in just a little. "I love it when you talk to me. You mean it, it isn't just some dirty bullshit that gets you off—" He gasps when Blaine's fingers find the spot between his shoulder blades. "I have heard so much ridiculous dialogue, you have no idea."
God, that ass dragging up and down his legs is driving him nuts. Porcelain's long fingers tighten in his hair, pulling him closer. The music hits a sweet, low throb, and Blaine's mouth tastes like whiskey and he can't fucking breathe.
Their foreheads touch and Blaine swallows Porcelain's breath and sweet fucking Christ he wants so much more than this.
"Fuck, we have to stop—we have to—" Porcelain turns his face away, shaking.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Fuck."
*
He and Rachel have a fight.
A huge blow-out fight that covers everything from bills to future plans to his late hours to her badly timed client appointments to the fact that they only have sex now when they're half asleep and they haven't seen their mutual friends or their families since the holidays.
It's the first time they've ever really just yelled at each other, hurt and ripped open and hiding things.
Blaine goes down to a bar on the corner and drinks himself into a stupor and then stumbles home to an empty apartment and destroys half the shit in the living room because he's fucking losing it, just losing it.
He hates his job and he hates his co-workers and he hates that the only time he feels like himself is when he's alone with someone who he has to pay to spend time with him.
*
The next time he goes to the club he asks Porcelain to put on something sexy and dance for him. He can't even imagine conversing right now; he knows that if he opens his mouth he's going to vomit up months of poisonous feelings and even someone being paid to entertain him doesn't deserve that kind of abuse. Hell, he doesn't deserve anything Blaine has to offer, he deserves so much more, and why can't it just be like that, why can't it just work?
Porcelain wears a full body leotard, only it's backless from shoulder to ass and when he twists and bends under the electric candle light Blaine can see the black thong that separates his cheeks, and when he really and truly bends he can see the round shape of Porcelain's balls between his legs.
It's not the most naked he has ever been, but something about the bare back and the thong cutting his ass in two makes Blaine rock hard almost instantly. He's barefoot and is wearing eyeliner and just a little mascara and his eyes are so blazing green that they literally glow out of the dark circles painted around them.
Blaine feels reckless and broken and stupid and like his cock has taken over everything rational about himself, from his brain to his useless hands and feet and knees and heart.
The man is so gorgeous that it literally hurts.
He presses the heel of his hand against his erection, not caring, not even feeling self-conscious when Porcelain stares at him, when the dancer's rhythm is thrown off and he has to cover the misstep by straddling Blaine's waist and thrashing to the beat of the music side to side, front to back, arms up and face tossing and hips churning.
Blaine feels trapped and clumsy in his shirt and tie and slacks and dress shoes; his attire is so wrong for this that he feels as if he is the one who is naked and exposed and writhing to the beat of the music.
They shouldn't touch, but they do.
Porcelain is against him and they are chest to chest, and he is spread so sweetly over Blaine's lap that Blaine can't bring himself to care about rules or his life outside of this place or anything that had made him up before he'd met this provocative, unique man who has completely taken over his life.
He has never, ever before raised his hands to touch Porcelain back, but he does now. He reaches up and grips those strong arms and lets himself be tipped back against the couch and Porcelain is right there, breathing heavily against his throat.
"What's your name?" he groans, turning his hot cheek against the man's throat. "Please. Please, tell me."
"I can't," comes the strangled gasp.
"Tell me. Tell me, tell me, please."
"Don't," Porcelain begs, voice cracking, holding him and rubbing against him, hips frantic and unforgiving. "Don't ask. Don't ask—oh, god, ohgod—" He shudders, and his thighs twitch and clamp, and he whimpers and his back bends inward and whimpers brokenly, "Blaine."
It's like a bolt of lightning.
He moaned my name. How does he even know...? Why would he want to know?
All at once, it ends; Porcelain scrambles away, clutching a discarded robe to his body like a shield. His eyes are filled with tears and he keeps shaking his head and looking away. "Please leave. Please leave, and don't come back, I can't do this I can't—I need this job and I can't—can't risk it."
And he's gone, the thin black door bouncing loudly into place behind him, leaving Blaine rumpled and hard and devastated.
*
He does go back, but he doesn't have the nerve to go inside. He doesn't think that he could handle the rejection if Porcelain actually ignored him or denied him his back room entry card or, worse, asked the bouncers to escort him out. Once that happens you are more or less banned from the establishment and he'd have no way to see Porcelain at all.
Most importantly, he keeps seeing the man's face, tear-streaked and twisted and asking him to please not come back, to please not mess things up for him, and he just can't do it, he cares way too fucking much.
So he gets some falafel and a Coke and walks around the block a few times. He just needs to get this out of his head, this compulsive urge to constantly be around someone that he can't have. He ducks into the small alley behind the building to toss his garbage in a dumpster. It's well past midnight and Porcelain would be gone by now anyway.
A yellow light flares not far off and he squints and steps away, not wanting to linger. The source of the light is an open door. A tall man in slacks and a badly-fitted dress shirt steps out, trailing cigarette smoke and a slender man in tight jeans and a scarf.
"I requested tomorrow night off three weeks ago," the latter says, irritated.
It's Porcelain.
"Just this once. Next time, make sure I see it."
"Alright, alright. Look, I'll cover Hunter's Monday slot if you want. I have it on good authority that he's going to call in; it's his girlfriend's birthday."
"Yeah, yeah. Write it on the pad."
"I will. G'night."
Porcelain starts walking toward the the street and Blaine holds his breath. Shit.
"I am not stalking you," he blurts, because it's too late to hide and he'd been directly in Porcelain's path to begin with.
Blaine's never seen the man in street clothes before. He's wearing said skinny jeans, a navy blue button down, a black vest, a gray scarf, military-style boots, a pea coat, and a messenger bag over his shoulder. He's two or three inches taller than Blaine.
"You are doing a very good job of it regardless," Porcelain says, all breath and unreadable emotion, though he had obviously jumped and reached for the mace in his bag at the first noise.
"I didn't go inside. I got something to eat down the block, and I was just tossing my garbage when you—when you came out the back way."
Porcelain appraises him with a quick, thorough glance. "Can we walk? I live just a few blocks over."
Something in Blaine's chest flails in excitement. "Sure." He folds his jacket neatly over one arm.
"I owe you an apology," Porcelain begins. "I crossed all the lines, and I confused you and I confused myself." And just as quickly, the thing in Blaine's chest deflates. He says nothing. "I'm not really a professional or a lifer or whatever, I'm just a student trying to make rent and graduate on time." He looks sideways at Blaine. "And you aren't saying anything."
"I'm not confused," he says. It isn't what he had planned to say, but when it comes out it cues a flood of words behind it. "I know that you think I am." He raises his hand and his wedding ring flashes in the streetlight. "But I'm not confused. I think deep down I've always known that I liked men, but I just never had a reason to acknowledge it. I love Rachel and I've been with her since I was a kid and I just—it was enough." He inhales, feeling his chest ache and his throat close up. Left unspoken is the and now it isn't and I don't know what to do.
"Why are you telling me this?" Porcelain asks angrily, stopping in his tracks.
"Because I need you to know that I know exactly what I feel when I'm with you," he says, wanting to reach out and touch him but knowing that he isn't welcome right now. "I'm not confused." Porcelains sighs and begins walking again. Blaine follows. "Do you mind if I ask why you are off tomorrow?"
"I'm—I have a small gig. Just a few songs, but it pays more than a night at the club and I need the cash. I'm kind of hoping it might become a permanent thing."
"Dancing?"
"Um, no. Singing. I sing, too."
Blaine grins like an idiot, he can't help it. "Is there anything you can't do?"
"Don't push it, gorgeous."
He gives it a second, then asks, "So are you any good?"
Porcelain smirks. "I'd like to think so, but I guess we'll see what they think."
"Am I invited?"
"That is a terrible idea."
"I think it is an excellent idea." Porcelain stops outside of a building and Blaine looks up. "This is you?"
"You're married," Porcelain says, casually but firmly.
"Help me figure this shit out," he replies.
"You're married."
Blaine stares at him, then steps closer, reducing the space between them significantly. He tilts his head up, loving the fact that he has to look up to meet Porcelain's eyes. "We've already broken the rules. Why not see what happens?"
He knows he's gotten somewhere when Porcelain's cheeks flush and his Adam's apple bobs (fuck, that throat). "Give me your phone." He hands it over. "I'm just putting the address in. Not my number, not some goofy picture. You don't have to come, but if you want to I go on at nine o'clock. We will not be having drinks beforehand. This is not a date."
"Nine o'clock, no drinks, not a date, got it."
"Good night, Blaine," Porcelain says, and it's faint but he's smiling and and he lingers just a little, turning sideways and watching over his shoulder as Blaine walks backwards away from him, unable to look away, bumping into trash cans as he goes.
Just as Porcelain disappears inside the doorway of his building Blaine shouts, "What's your name?"
Porcelain just waggles his fingers in goodbye.
*
He isn’t sure what to expect, which only throws into sharp relief the fact that he knows next to nothing about Porcelain. Will he sing pop music or show tunes or classic rock? Blaine has no idea.
Rachel is out of town for the weekend on business, so he takes his time getting ready. The last thing he wants is for Porcelain to see him in his work clothes again, so he dresses in his favorite pair of jeans and a simple polo shirt. He uses a bare minimum of product on his hair, so it’s still a mess of curls but they mostly sit still and don’t get frizzy.
He doesn’t think that he could stand to wait around for the show to start so he doesn’t go inside until the sound check starts. He also has no intention of drinking, at least not until afterward; he wants to remember this. The place is packed but he manages to find some empty space way off to the right side of the stage. There are benefits to being compact.
His nerves jangle as he watches Porcelain and a few other musicians warm up. He hasn’t been noticed yet, so he takes the time to observe Porcelain move confidently around the stage and chat with his companions. He’s wearing a black long-sleeved collared shirt and a pair of incredibly tight gold pants.
Of course, the last thing that Blaine expects them to open with is “Love Shack” by the B52’s.
The crowd loves it and with good reason; it’s a kickass song and a great way to get the energy in the room going. The way that Porcelain shares the male and female verses with the man singing with him is truly impressive.
At “Tin roof; rusted!” he throws an arm up toward the ceiling and falls to his knees, hips out, to catcalls and whoops from the audience. He’s vibrant and beautiful and talented; none of this surprises Blaine.
The next song is “Defying Gravity” from Wicked. When a female accompaniment doesn’t step up, he starts to fidget a little; there’s no way a tenor could ever hit the high notes in that song.
And then Porcelain’s voice just keeps going up. The song never gives him difficulty; he isn’t a tenor, he’s a countertenor, a term that floats vaguely back to Blaine from high school glee club lessons. It’s a fucking amazing range. He goes from impressed to in awe by the end of the song. Porcelain doesn’t just sing the song. It’s as if the song erupts from somewhere deep inside of him, just shy of uncontrolled. As he belts out the last notes, Blaine actually feels his eyes fill with tears. He doesn’t think he has ever heard a man sing like that before. He doesn’t think he has ever heard that song sung so well outside of a theater before. The applause is raucous, but not overstated. Has he played here before?
Porcelain stops to drink from a water bottle and then several other musicians join him on stage for a hilariously choreographed and slightly upscale version of “U Can’t Touch This” by M.C. Hammer. Blaine supposes that the gold pants were well planned after all, though he doubts that the original artist would approve of how tight Porcelain is wearing them. The thought makes him crack up.
Sweating under the bright lights of the stage, Porcelain thanks his friends. A stool is brought out and he sits, adjusting the microphone. “Thank you, thank you. And thank you again to the New Directions for giving me some sorely needed assistance, there.” He smiles and waves at his friends. “I’m fabulous, but that song is just too big for one person.” He takes a breath. “So it’s getting late. The lights are low. You’re all drunk enough not to criticize me. Suffice it say this is my favorite part of the performance.” The audience laughs. “And so I’d like to take it down a little.” He sits up straighter. “If you’re out there in the dark, this is for you, Blaine.”
And he begins to sing in a soft, beautifully textured tenor.
Someone to hurt you too deep.
Someone to sit in you chair,
To ruin your sleep,
Someone to need you too much.
Someone to know you too well.
Someone to pull you up short,
And put you through hell,
Someone you have to let in,
Someone whose feelings you spare,
Someone who, like it or not,
Will want you to share
A little, a lot.
Someone to crowd you with love.
Someone to force you to care.
Someone to make you come through,
Who'll always be there,
As frightened as you,
Of being alive,
Being alive.
Being alive.
Being alive!
Somebody hold me too close.
Somebody hurt me too deep.
Somebody sit in my chair,
And ruin my sleep,
And make me aware,
Of being alive.
Being alive.
Somebody need me too much.
Somebody know me too well.
Somebody pull me up short,
And put me through hell,
And give me support,
For being alive.
Make me alive.
Make me alive.
Make me confused.
Mock me with praise.
Let me be used.
Vary my days.
But alone,
Is alone,
Not alive.
Somebody crowd me with love.
Somebody force me to care.
Somebody let me come through,
I'll always be there,
As frightened as you,
To help us survive,
Being alive.
Being alive.
Being alive!
By the end of the song the bar is literally silent.
Blaine has curled up on a piece of woodwork that juts out from the stairs at the side of the stage. He feels like he’s been punched. Porcelain hasn’t found him in the crowd yet despite several visual sweeps. He wonders what the other man is thinking and he wonders why he doesn’t just step out and allow himself to be seen so that he’ll know, he’ll know that Blaine heard every word, that Blaine watched him bend into the microphone as the lyrics literally forced him to curl around his middle as if he were in pain, that Blaine watched as he cried without losing pitch or focus.
Suffocating, Blaine pushes through the crowd and out onto the sidewalk. It’s freezing for February but he doesn’t feel it, doesn’t even bother to button up his jacket, he just walks to the nearest alleyway and hides, hugging his arms to his body and he just shakes.
“Blaine?”
He jerks in place at the sound of his name. Just looking at Porcelain makes him hurt, so he looks away and curls inward, arms and chest hunching forward. It's no surprise that he'd finally been noticed. He'd probably caused a commotion pushing through the crowd like that.
“I wasn’t going to sing that song. I was up all night thinking about it.” He steps closer. “But I had to.”
“You—you said this wasn’t a date, and then you sing that—that song, what, what do you expect me to think?”
Porcelain has the grace to blush. “It came up on my iPod last night. And I listened to it and I thought, ‘this is the first time in my life that I’ve ever understood this song’. It’s not right and it’s not fair but it’s how you make me feel. If I kept pushing you away, it—I'd be lying to both of us.” He shivers in cool night air, his breath coming in plumes. “It doesn’t have to be anything more than that; I just needed you to know. You were honest last night and I just wanted to get away from that." God, his pale, sharp, beautiful, tortured fucking face. Blaine can’t handle it. “You—you look good,” he continues, sounding young and desperate. “I like you in casual wear.”
He forces himself to look up. Those gold pants, Jesus. Otherwise Porcelain is covered by a coat. “Your M.C. Hammer number was awesome.” His voice is thick from crying.
Porcelain slides one arm through his and guides them back out onto the sidewalk. “And the rest were just okay?”
“I had no idea that you were a countertenor.”
“I had no idea that you knew what a countertenor was.” His smile is so brilliant that it’s almost blinding.
“I was kind of a music geek in high school,” Blaine replies. “I was in show choir and Rachel and I used to take dance lessons. Everything you sang tonight was amazing.”
“You have hidden depths.”
"Where did your friends go?"
"Airport. It was their last night here."
He swallows heavily. “Are you going to get a cab or…?”
“Blaine,” Porcelain says, “Say something, please. This small talk is driving me nuts.”
He feels like a rung dishrag, in no shape whatsoever to converse maturely, and something dangerous and impulsive is gathering force deep within his chest. “See, I have a problem with that. Because there’s really only one thing that I want to do right now.”
Porcelain turns toward him, cheeks pink and eyes bright. The streetlight has picked up all the different colors in his hair and surrounded them with fractured white halos. His mouth is pink and a little chapped. "And what is that?"
“This,” Blaine says, and kisses him.
Porcelain makes a noise that dies on Blaine’s lips. His fingers tangle in Blaine’s curls and Blaine is pulled up onto his toes as one kiss becomes two becomes three. That sweet mouth opens for him and their tongues sink into each other’s mouths and yes, it’s fireworks and a full orchestra performance of Ode to Joy and his heart trying to climb out of his chest, it’s everything he’s ever felt before only magnified a thousand times.
Gasping, they separate. Porcelain’s hands scrub at his scalp and then fall to touch his face, and there are fingertips on his eyelids and his lips and those dancing, laughing eyes are staring down into his and that up-turned nose and those dimples.
Their noses touch. Porcelain sighs, “Spend the night with me.”
Blaine’s entire body shivers. “Not a date?”
Porcelain kisses him, and this time it’s rough and a little dirty. He pulls away, panting. “So much more than a date.”
*
At some point during the cab ride sitting close and holding hands had evolved into something needy and sharp and they’d kissed all the way up the stairs and the moment the door is locked Porcelain pushes Blaine against it.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” Blaine gasps as Porcelain kisses and bites down his throat.
They kiss, scrabbling at each other’s clothes but accomplishing nothing because mapping limbs and squeezing each other everywhere is vastly more important than nudity at this moment in time.
He tries to move them farther into the room but Porcelain pushes him back against the door with a frustrated whine.
“No roommate?” he asks.
“Why are you still coherent?” Porcelain replies. Blaine groans into his mouth. “Wanna take care of you,” he says, sliding to his knees. His fingers dance over Blaine’s belt buckle, plucking and tugging it open. “Let me take care of you.”
Oh, fuck.
He’s seen Porcelain on his knees before, but never like this. He can hardly allow himself to look; those eyes and that pink fucking mouth biting at his zipper—
“You have no idea,” Porcelain growls, jerking his fly open. “You would just sit there, hard as a rock, and you never touched yourself and you never even hinted, never asked, you have no idea how many of them have asked, have expected it.” Hot breath over his crotch and Blaine cries out when Porcelain’s face rubs up and down his clothed erection. “So fucking hot, Blaine, I’d never gotten hard dancing before but with you, Jesus, I could have come just rubbing against my underwear if I’d let myself, just watching you—your eyes fucking eating me alive.”
“Oh god if you keep doing that.”
He’s mouthing wetly over Blaine’s cock through the material, soaking his underwear with spit. “Don’t care.” Wet, smacking noises as he pulls against the cloth, and then his hand comes up and tugs down and Blaine’s cock pops free of the underwear and he sucks the head into his mouth.
“Fuck,” Blaine hisses, sensation whiplashing up his spine.
“Don’t care if you last ten seconds,” Porcelain pants, sucking, sucking, sucking, head bobbing as he takes the top half of Blaine’s erection into his mouth over and over. “Just come in my mouth, come on. Need to fucking taste you.”
Blaine can’t stop, not now, not when he is being touched like that, not now because it’s been months and he has wanted this man since the moment he laid eyes on him; he twists his fingers around the hair at the back of Porcelain’s head and comes, sobbing, his cock emptying into Porcelain’s mouth.
Porcelain utters a throaty, satisfied little hum that makes Blaine twitch and dribble. He swallows and sucks hard, drawing every last drop out, and Blaine shudders and fumbles for a handhold on the door before giving up and falling to his knees. He grabs Porcelain by the ears and kisses him and they roll back onto the floor. Porcelain ends up on top.
Blaine frantically strips off the man’s coat (the bag had fallen somewhere on the floor) and scarf, kissing at his neck and mouth and cheeks and eyes and anything he can reach. He’s so warm, so hard, and Blaine can’t stop himself from pulling Porcelain’s shirt from his pants, from trying to get everything just off of him, right fucking now.
“Fuck, these pants,” he groans, biting at skin. “I can see your fucking religion in these pants.” An explosive, overwhelmed, giddy laugh from above, and then Porcelain’s hips grind down against his spent cock. “I want you to watch you come.” Blaine fumbles, unsure but so very determined, opening Porcelain’s belt and sliding one hand down the front of his pants.
“Blaine,” he whimpers.
“I used to fantasize about you touching yourself while you danced for me,” he exhales, wrapping his hand around Porcelain’s cock (fuck, so long, so fucking thick). “Thinking that you actually enjoyed doing it, that it turned you on, I can’t tell you how many times I went home and rubbed myself raw thinking about you doing the same.”
“I did,” Porcelain rasps, thrusting in and out of Blaine’s fist. “I used to go back into the room after you left and jerk off while the pillows still smelled like you.”
“Jesus,” Blaine hisses. He pulls faster, clutching Porcelain’s left shoulder blade with his free hand. He bites Porcelain's lower lip and sucks on it and then kisses him full on the mouth. "What did you get off to? What made you come?"
"I thought about fucking you," Porcelain says. Blaine whimpers, and his body literally twitches with longing. Porcelain's face presses into his shoulder. "I thought about making you ride me, making you sit on my cock."
"I'll let you," he gasps, twisting his fist around Porcelain's cock. "I'll let you fuck me. Let you be my first, let you take it—you can fuck me hard, fast, I want to fucking feel it—"
"Ohgod, don't stop."
"So big," he growls, wrapping one leg around Porcelain's waist. "Want you to fill me up."
Porcelain comes with a cry, shaking and twisting downward, shooting strand after strand of come all over Blaine's shirt and jeans. After that, all Blaine recalls is a fuzzy slide into unconsciousness.
*
They get up as some point during the night. Blaine remembers taking his shirt and jeans off and falling into a very tiny bed, and Porcelain moving around for a while and then coming back in just a pair of underwear.
He remembers warmth and long limbs and feeling completely safe.
"Good morning," says a sleepy, rough voice, right against his neck. There is not an inch of space between them.
He inhales, then exhales, and opens his eyes. God, the man is beautiful. "For a second there I thought I dreamed last night."
"Nope," Porcelain says, and rolls over on top of him.
He sighs contentedly, sliding his hands around Porcelain's tiny waist as he settles over Blaine's pelvis and sits up. "You are the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen." His collarbone and neck are splotched with hickies and teeth marks. He's wearing a pair of tight, gray colored underwear and nothing else. "I don't even remember doing that."
"You're a natural." He licks his lips and reaches down, wrapping Blaine's absent-minded morning erection up in his hand.
"Oh," Blaine moans.
"I like it better now that I can actually see it," Porcelain says, never taking his eyes off of Blaine's face as he begins to jerk him off with a steady rhythm and a firm grip.
Blaine sprawls a little, back off the sheets, arms out, head against the pillow. "God, that feels so good." It's also not going to last long; fuck, he is on such a hair-trigger around Porcelain. "Can we—can we do something together? Wanna be closer to you."
"And a charmer, too," Porcelain replies, lowering himself until he's on top of Blaine, who pushes his underwear down around his hips just enough to allow his cock to bob freely. He wraps his hand around both of their cocks and kisses Blaine, warm and sweet and slow.
Blaine hums happily into the kiss and wraps his arms around Porcelain, his legs sliding around the back of the other man's knees. He arches his hips a little to fix the angle, then just settles in and sweeps his hands up and down Porcelain's back as they build up friction and motion between them.
It's a quiet escalation; their breathing gradually quickening, their cocks swelling and hardening, until they are panting and making the bed squeak as they rock together. Blaine takes over for a while, thrilling at the feel of Porcelain's cock in his hand, against his own cock, silky hard and just a little damp at the tip.
"You feel so good," he whispers, nudging his nose up behind Porcelain's ear. "You make me crazy. You know that, right?"
"I knew you were going to be a talker," Porcelain says, grinning. "You're just a late bloomer."
"Look at me," Blaine says, and slides his nose alongside Porcelain's until their lips brush and their eyes lock. "I want to come with you. I'm—close."
"Me too, just—a little harder, okay?"
"Okay," Blaine says, and they're quiet for a little while, and then he feels Porcelain start to tremble and his hips stutter a little and god, it's right there all over that beautiful flushed face, and it's so fucking much that Blaine wants to just drown in it. "Yeah, like that. I've got you."
"Blaine. Blaine." His face, Jesus fucking Christ his face, twisted up and red-cheeked and lips parted, his throat working, corded with muscle as everything tenses all at fucking once.
And that's all it takes; they come just seconds apart, Blaine sobbing into Porcelain's shoulder as their come mixes all over his hand and forearm and belly.
They kiss and Blaine holds him by small of his back, but eventually movement becomes necessary and so does a shower. They take turns doing the latter. They drink coffee and eat toast and watch Saturday morning talk shows.
"Do you have to work today?" Blaine eventually asks.
"Uh, yeah. Much later, though."
He wants to say, let's do something. Let's find a hole in the wall place with awesome food or a thrift store with ridiculous shit on offer or maybe we could just stay here and fuck all day, but something about the idea just feels wrong. They've gone from "no dating" to sleeping together so fast that reality is beginning to reassert itself just as rapidly.
Blaine thinks about Rachel and feels sick to his stomach. He thinks about his job and his apartment and his fucking plants and he knows that he can't just hide himself away in Porcelain's shoe box apartment and pretend that nothing else exists. He kind of needs some space to figure out what the fuck he's going to do.
So he says, "Would you be totally offended if I kissed you goodbye right now and said I would call you later, maybe when you got off work?"
"Oh thank god," Porcelain replies. "I was just thinking the same thing." He puts his coffee mug down. "This is not my morning after regret face, but I think I need to freak out a little in private."
"Me too," he replies. "But first." He finds his jeans on the floor and wrestles his cellphone out of the pocket, then hands it with a flourish to Porcelain. "Can I have your phone number?"
"You are like a backwards person," Porcelain says, flat and dry.
He grins. "Come on."
"Okay. Okay." Porcelain gets his phone and they exchange and tap away and then swap back.
Blaine doesn't know what makes him look before he puts his phone away but he does.
Kurt Hummel.
His throat closes up and he stares at—
Kurt.
Stares at Kurt, who is smiling and biting his lip. "It's nice to meet you, Blaine Anderson."
"Kurt," he says, like a prayer, like a magic spell, like a fucking star burst turned into a single word, like driving at ninety miles per hour down an open road with the top down. "Kurt." He laughs but it feels like crying anyway.
They kiss goodbye in the doorway, Blaine's hands framing Kurt's face as if it might shatter if he touches it too roughly. "What time do you finish your shift?"
"Eleven," Kurt answers, eyes drifting distractedly across Blaine's mouth. "You need to leave before I drag you back inside. This is not a drill."
Blaine laughs, touching Kurt's hands until he has no other choice but to turn and let them go.
*
He has two texts and one missed call from Rachel. He calls her and she answers, out of breath and accompanied by a lot of background noise, "You are the worst texter ever."
"I am. Hello. Where are you?"
"Home! I got back early. God, you're not grocery shopping, are you? Will there be dead animals when you get home, please tell me you didn't buy any meat."
He laughs and dodges an old lady walking a dog, quietly freaking out inside because she wasn't supposed to be back until Sunday night and he's wearing rumpled clothes and he's had sex twice in the last twelve hours with a man.
Fuck.
The very worst part of it is that she doesn't even comment. She doesn't even notice. She trusts him completely.
Blaine wonders why he wishes that she just wouldn't. That she'd see him for the fraud that he is.
*
omg this guy was a total creeper you have no idea
do i have to come down there?
god no ill explan later, u still comin?
of course
yay :)
*
He tells Rachel that he'd already made plans for Saturday night because he'd had no idea that she'd be coming home early, and she kisses him and smiles in a kind of wounded way that makes him want to stay. Lately there are more frowns and heavy looks than smiles and it's all his fault. But the truth is, his stomach is already full of jitters and he needs to go. He has to go. He has to see Kurt again.
Kurt is in their back room when he arrives, wearing boy shorts so small that his ass doesn't fit entirely inside them and men's knee-high boots. Blaine's brain goes blank for a moment, and then he just growls and tackles Kurt into the couch.
"So tell me about the creeper," he says, rolling Kurt underneath him. Kurt's legs go around his waist, and the feel of the leather boots against him drives him momentarily crazy. He nuzzles into Kurt's neck and runs his hands down, cupping those round cheeks and dragging their pelvises together.
"He wanted me to get him off with my feet," Kurt says casually, the way one might say "he wanted me to whistle him a tune", and Blaine laughs.
"Did you have to get Ken?"
"Towards the end, yes, but Mr. Foot Fetish went peacefully enough."
"Good. I'm not really the revenge type."
"You are small but fierce. I think you might surprise yourself."
"I already have," Blaine says, smiling, taking his hands off of Kurt's ass and lacing their fingers together instead. Kurt almost naked under him is so fucking beautiful; pale, almost hairless skin, and a smile makes Blaine feel like he's free-falling.
"Everything okay?"
He had texted Kurt to let him know that Rachel was home early. "Yep."
"Shall we say hello to the elephant in the room?"
Blaine wets his lips and lies down comfortably, tucking their bodies together. "You deserve more. Better."
Kurt doesn't even have to agree. Blaine hears it in the silence. And then he asks, "Are you going to tell her?"
He flinches. "Yes. I respect her. I've violated that, but only because I needed to be sure."
"Please leave me out of this," Kurt says, soft but sure of himself. "I don't want you to do this because of me."
"Can I be honest? It does have a lot to do with you." He sighs. "I know that's not what you want to hear. This would have probably happened at some point with someone else, even if—"
Kurt raises an eyebrow up at him. "Even if?"
"Even if it hadn't meant as much as this does," he finishes, staring back. "She was my first and my only. We got married too young. I see that now. Maybe it was wrong from the start. I still love her, but we've outgrown our life together; it just feels too small, too restrictive now. I feel like I'm drowning. Not when I'm with her, I mean; she's fabulous, you'd actually like her. But when I think about the structure we've built around everything; the in-laws, the planned vacations, our parents wanting us to get pregnant...I just panic, and I don't want any of it. I'm only twenty-seven and I hate it all."
"Not to play the devil's advocate at my own expense, but have you talked to her about this? Maybe she hates it, too. Maybe she wants to change. Maybe you could change together."
Blaine wets his lips, then leans down and kisses Kurt softly. The moment stretches, and Kurt melts under him, mouth going easy and then hungry. He pulls back, smiling, thumbing Kurt's bottom lip. "That's why I haven't, Kurt. I don't want to change with Rachel, as cruel as that sounds."
Kurt closes his eyes, looking all at once blissful and afraid. "This is about me. Jesus, Blaine. You haven't even asked me what I want."
Blaine nods. "You're right. I'm being selfish. I've been selfish with Rachel and now I'm doing it with you." He slides out from under Kurt and sits on the couch facing the table, elbows on his knees. "Fuck."
"Maybe we should cool it off?" Kurt sits up next to him. It's unfair that he can be so composed three quarters of the way naked in boy shorts and knee-high boots.
"Do you want to cool it off?" He can't stop nervously glancing at Kurt's face, trying to judge his reaction. "What do you want, Kurt?"
"Damnit." Kurt throws a leg over his lap and sits down, pressing him into the back of the couch. He kisses Blaine hungrily, twisting his fingers in Blaine's collar, making his tie loosen. "You know I don't want to stop seeing you. Right now that's all I have to give, though."
Blaine runs his fingers down the smooth, naked curve of Kurt's back, and folds his hands over the curve of his ass. He feels around where the shorts end and leave an inch or two of naked cheek exposed. "You look amazing." He slips the first four fingers of each hand down the waistband of the shorts, pulling Kurt tight against him. "We really need to establish a clothes-on rule for serious conversations, because they are all going to end with me groping you otherwise."
"Clothes-on conversation next week maybe?" Kurt breathes, and their mouths hover just apart, and his hips jolt, rubbing against Blaine's stomach.
Blaine's fingers slide down and in, stroking Kurt's balls and the inside of his thighs. He has no idea how Kurt manages to be so fucking soft and yet hard at the same time. "I can't stay. I told Rachel I was just having a late night drink with a friend."
Kurt deflates and sits up; his booted calves frame Blaine's legs on the couch and his ass presses down against Blaine's thighs as he pulls away. "Okay, shoo, then." He tilts his head. "I'll just have to take care of myself."
"Can you do something for me?" There is that eyebrow again. He lowers his voice and strokes around and up Kurt's sides, tracing the ridges of his ribcage all the way to his pectorals and then onwards and upwards to his collarbone. "Spread yourself out on this couch. Keep the boots on. Come in those underwear for me. You don't even need to send me dirty picture texts. I just want to imagine you doing that. Take your time. Mess yourself up."
"Okay," Kurt replies breathlessly. His nipples are hard under Blaine's thumbs. "But if you want that you are going to have to leave, okay? Like, right now."
*
What’s hardest is that he can’t talk about it. He’d underestimated how difficult it would be to have all these new things in his life and absolutely no one to share them with. It depresses him that he doesn’t have a single friend left that is far enough away from his life with Rachel to listen to his confession without immediately condemning him. It’s not that he expects praise or support, but he just wants to tell someone, he just needs someone to know that he has found this amazing person and he needs to tell Rachel but he just doesn’t know how.
He is slowly realizing that the fallout from this, when it does occur, is going to be extreme. He’ll lose Rachel’s dads and most of their friends and his parents, while off-handedly supportive of him, won’t take the news that their son is divorcing his wife to date a man with any enthusiasm. He’ll lose their apartment and their things and the comforting familiarity of years of the same person.
And then he realizes that he just thought the word divorce, and the world spins to a screeching halt around him. He looks over at Rachel who is taking off her makeup at the vanity in the bathroom. He sets his book aside and presses two fingers to the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the nausea that sweeps through him.
“Honey? Who’s Kurt Hummel?” she asks lightly, coming out of the bathroom in shorts and a tank top with her hair pulled into a ponytail.
The bottom falls out of his stomach. “A friend. Why?”
“I promise I wasn’t snooping. Your phone was on the sink and it lit up. You’ve never mentioned him.” She sits Indian-style on the bed.
He exhales, and then looks at her. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry,” she says, softly. “I want my best friend back.”
“Look, let’s—let’s watch a movie, okay? I’m going to go get some rum raisin and we’re going to get our sugar high on.”
She smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. “Okay.”
Just outside the convenience store, he frantically dials Kurt. “Rachel saw your name on my phone.”
Noise on the other end, mostly music. Kurt sighs. “I’m not sure what to say? Do you want me to stop texting you unless I know you’re alone?”
He swallows around the golf ball in his throat. “God, no, Kurt, I—fuck.”
“I’m guessing that those naked pictures I was about to send are out of the question now?”
Blaine laughs, closing his eyes and ducking his face low over the phone. “You suck.”
“Only if you’re a very good boy.”
“You don’t even have to try to make me feel better. It’s almost unfair.”
“Bandaid on a bullet wound, honey,” he says, a little sad. “It’s not going to get any easier.” He pauses, and then continues, “And this is not me telling you what to do, or what I want. You’re my friend, Blaine, and I care about you.”
“And I’m listening. I’m—trying.” He begins to walk back to the apartment.
“Okay, sweetheart. Have a good night.”
*
They go to dinner. They go to shows. They take trains and buses out of the city to explore suburbs and rural areas. Blaine meets some of Kurt’s friends, but only the ones from school. They go dancing. Kurt insists that they go to a gay bar just once to give Blaine the experience and he hates it (it turns out that Kurt does, too, he was just curious about Blaine’s reaction).
Blaine learns that they have similar musical interests but he’s a little more Top 40 while Kurt’s a little more musical theater. He learns that Kurt is a hopeless romantic with weak spots for charm and chivalry so obvious that it’s almost impossible to not indulge them. He learns that Kurt has wonderful friends all over the country and a step-mother and step-brother that he loves dearly, and that his father had been an amazing dad. He learns that Kurt loves cheesecake and flamboyant accessories and singing songs written for female voices as much for the joy of singing in his natural range as for showing up the snotty sopranos who he has classes with. He learns that Kurt has never really had a boyfriend, but has had a series of intense, short affairs that had meant quite a lot to him despite their brevity.
Blaine sings to him on the subway one day and Kurt stares at him and asks him why the hell he didn’t mention that he could sing? After that they sing to each other all the time, sometimes embarrassing themselves in public in the best way possible.
They text a lot, but mostly during Blaine’s work day because he doesn’t have to worry about Rachel noticing and he can delete their text thread on the way home and not think about it. They avoid sexual texting entirely; it’s just too much of a risk.
This doesn’t stop Kurt from calling him on his lunch break and driving him crazy, however.
“I have been banished to the sewing machine again,” Kurt says. “Why did I ever tell these people about my perfect seams?”
“The world should know about your perfect seams.”
“I’m just finishing up. It’s like a graveyard in here.”
“Oh, really?” Blaine sits back in his desk chair.
“Mm,” Kurt hums. “Are you alone?”
“A lot of people went out for lunch, but I’m not alone alone.”
“That is such a shame.” He can almost hear Kurt grin. “It you were alone alone, I could tell you about how I’ve been half-hard all day thinking about you.”
Blaine feels his face flush with heat. He looks around. There’s no one in sight, but that doesn’t mean that someone won’t walk by any second. He leans forward, elbows on his desk, and lowers his voice. “You are such a tease.” His mouth turns up into stupid grin.
“What, I’m not allowed to miss you? To miss your stupid goofy handsome face, or your hands, or your strong arms around me?” Kurt’s voice goes uneven. “To miss your teeth on my shoulder, or your legs around my waist?”
“Fuck, Kurt.”
“But if I were truly, truly being honest, I’d talk about how I can’t stop thinking about your cock in my mouth; god, Blaine, you’re so thick, love the way you stretch me open. Love the way you fuck my lips with these barely controlled thrusts, love it when you come all over my tongue.”
Blaine spreads his thighs and lets his erection down the right leg of his pants. He tries so hard to not breathe heavily that he starts to see spots behind his eyelids. He doesn’t even have to ask if Kurt’s touching himself because he knows that Kurt is.
“We need to go somewhere,” Blaine pants. “We need to go somewhere because I fucking need you, it’s been weeks. I want to do everything.”
“Keep talking, please keep talking.”
He knows that any moment someone could walk through that door, and all it does is make him harder. “We never have time, fuck, and I just want you, want you to show me how you like to be sucked, want you to spread me open and put your fingers in me, shit—”
“Oh, god, Blaine.”
He can’t help it; he reaches down and squeezes himself, awkwardly fisting what he can of the shaft in his free hand. “Fuck I can’t do this now, there are fucking people in the building, Kurt.”
“Just—stay with me a second okay, I—oh fuck.”
Blaine bites his lip to stop from making a noise when Kurt comes, whimpering and gasping into the phone.
*
They have a reservation at a hotel and tickets to a concert in New Jersey that weekend (it's been planned for ages). Blaine packs at the last minute, which is weird for him but he literally can't concentrate, all he can think about is having one entire night and complete privacy with Kurt that doesn't involve his microscopic bed or an hour or two here and there or the tiny back room at the club.
He texts Kurt that he's on his way to meet him at the train station.
Rachel is still asleep, but he wakes her up to kiss her goodbye. Most days, the guilt from being with Kurt behind her back comes in waves; sometimes overwhelming, sometimes just a gentle lapping, sometimes non-existent; today it's that last. He needs to be with Kurt right now.
It’s a beautiful Spring day outside, just a little warm and breezy. He practically bounces all the way to the station, and doesn’t hesitate to kiss Kurt once they’re settled on board.
“I have brought an assortment of scarves and shawls for your perusal,” Kurt says excitedly.
“You’re going to make me dress up, aren’t you?”
“Oh honey, if anything you’d be Lindsey and I’d be Stevie, don’t even try to take my shawls. Though I’m not sure I could find her range and she is, naturally, so much more a diva than I am. Then again, those boots, that is reason enough to try.” Kurt blinks. “Oh my god you’d make an amazing young Lindsey Buckingham, that hair, Blaine! I’d just have to hide your hair gel. Oh my god, Halloween costumes you are a genius.”
Blaine can only stare, heart literally aching in his chest. He opens his mouth to agree but what comes out instead is, “I love you.”
Kurt’s face freezes. He smiles, slow and soft, and the smile makes his eyes bluer, somehow. “I love you, too.” His voice is high and he seems taken off guard. It’s not the ecstatic reaction that Blaine might have wanted, but it’s realistic and it’s genuine. He laces their fingers together. He thinks about justifying his admission and then decides to let it stand on its own.
It’s only the truth, after all.
They check in to the hotel around noon. It’s nothing special, just a chain hotel with affordable rates close to the concert venue, a boring but clean room that has, most importantly, a king-sized bed. In opposition to the cliché, they’ve never actually gone to a hotel together.
Kurt chucks their bags at the foot of the bed. He looks paler than usual in the thin yellow sunlight that streams in through the parted hotel curtains. Blaine wonders if what he’d said on the train has changed anything between them. Something seems rearranged in Kurt’s expression, as if knowing how Blaine feels has altered him at the muscular level.
“Do you want to get lunch?” he asks.
“No, Kurt,” Blaine replies, reaching out and cupping Kurt’s face in his hands. He kisses him, gently at first and then harder, parting Kurt’s lips with his tongue. Kurt exhales into his mouth and pulls him closer.
“Shower with me?” Kurt asks. His eyes pass over Blaine’s body. He doesn’t wait for an answer before taking Blaine’s hand and leading him into the bathroom, neatly snagging his own soap and shampoo on the way. Blaine isn’t surprised that he refuses to acknowledge the existence of hotel toiletries; Kurt is very particular about his skin.
And oh, is that understandable. Blaine watches, still in awe of it, as Kurt takes off his clothes and folds them neatly on the back of the toilet. He is literally acres of creamy skin, and his freckles make Blaine want to fall to his knees in worship of them.
“Will you always look at me like that, I wonder?” Kurt asks coyly, turning on the shower.
Blaine can only bite his lip as Kurt pulls him under the shower's head. They actually do wash a little (the train ride left them feeling pretty grimy) but then Kurt cups his head and pushes him against the shower wall and all thoughts of hygiene go flying out the window. Kurt has this wonderful habit of putting Blaine where and how he wants him, he just effortlessly seems to know exactly when to push and when to pull, and it drives Blaine crazy.
There's lovely, lovely soap everywhere, and the steam is making Blaine feel a little dizzy, and Kurt is not so much kissing him as fucking his mouth with thrusts of tongue and bites of teeth, and their cocks are rubbing together between them.
Kurt's hands linger at the small of his back, and eventually those long fingers start working soap into his cheeks.
He exhales a small whimper.
Kurt's soapy fingers slide between his cheeks so easily. He's kissing at Blane's neck and ear, panting as he works soap up and down the crack of Blaine's ass.
"Oh my god," Blaine whines. It feels like every nerve in his body is somehow connected to his ass and every rough squeeze and press sets off another wave of sensation.
"So good," Kurt says, rocking their cocks together a little harder. "Spread for me a little, baby."
Blaine flushes hot and lets his clamped thighs spread, which of course allows other things to spread, and Kurt's fingers curl, just so, right fucking there, and Blaine can feel his hole twitch against Kurt's fingertips. He feels a panicky sort of emotion flutter under his ribcage; he has never done this, not even alone, and it's momentarily just as scary as it is exhilarating. It's not one hundred percent sexual; it's invasive, and a little uncomfortable, both the action and the thought of just being opened like that.
But he wants it; he wants it so badly, and wants it with Kurt most of all, god, yes.
Kurt's first two fingers, down to the first knuckle, push inside of him, and he whines, arching upward.
"Kurt," he whimpers, tilting his head back against the shower wall. Kurt kisses his jaw, his Adam's apple, his throat, licks water off of his feverish skin.
"Press back against me," Kurt says.
He does, and—and the fingers just sort of sink in, and it twinges and then it doesn't, except he's full, so full, and Kurt's wrist flexes as his fingers go deeper, up and in at a weird angle and an electric, sudden sensation flares at the base of his cock and balls and somehow at the same time down along his inner thigh. "Fuck."
The soap that is making this all possible dries up quickly and water just isn't the same. Kurt slowly stops, kissing Blaine everywhere, at his face and jaw and neck and throat and shoulder, and then he whispers hotly against Blaine's ear, "Bed?"
"Godyes."
They dry off. Blaine feels weird, a little open still and exposed, as Kurt slides onto the bed with a bottle of lubricant in his left hand. He sprawls onto his back and puts the bottle down beside him. Blaine just stares at that image, heart in his throat, as Kurt reaches down and begins slowly stroking himself.
"Am I being too presumptuous?" Kurt's face and throat are red with blood, and the muscles in his upper and forearm flex as he works his cock.
Blaine looks at the lubricant, breathless. "No, Kurt. I—god." He realizes he's spent almost all of this time just gawking and being useless, so he kneels on the bed and knees over to Kurt, straddling his waist and reaching for his hands. Their fingers lace in the air, and Blaine kisses Kurt's fingers and wrists, inhaling deeply. He sucks a couple of Kurt's fingers into his mouth and they almost taste like the sharp flavor of Kurt's cock and maybe something else; he shivers and feels his dick twitch.
"Please touch me," he asks, and Kurt's hands immediately stroke up and down his chest and around his waist. The right hand disappears subtly and comes back full of lubricant. It drips down over Kurt's fingers and gets on Blaine's leg. It's cool, but he doesn't care, as he is far too focused on Kurt's fingers sliding between his cheeks and stroking his hole. "Oh."
"Sit back on your calves—there we go."
It's a better angle and he can kind of control things, which makes him feel more comfortable. It's still weird at first, and Kurt has to keep applying lubricant because it keeps drying up, but they reach this point where Blaine is rocking softly up and down and Kurt is filling him with slow, deep presses of two fingers, and every now and then—
"Kurt," he moans, as that feeling happens again, like he is coming for just a split second inside.
"So fucking hot," Kurt says, watching him. He can feel his cock bob in front of him, can feel the blood rush to his face and neck and shoulders, can feel Kurt's everything below him, and he feels sexy and so good it's almost too much.
He almost forgets about his erection, and then Kurt fists him, and he jerks forward, grabbing for and finding the headboard under his fingers. "Oh fuck I'm close, don't—"
"You first," Kurt says, and fuck, his voice, rough and high-pitched at the same time, so obviously wrecked by Blaine's reaction.
"N-no I want, want—"
"Trust me, it will help. Just trust me, okay?"
"O-okay," Blaine moans, voice breaking, as Kurt's hand just fucking flies, jerking him hard and fast. "Oh, god." He sobs once as he starts to come, staring wide-eyed as it spills all over Kurt's chest and collarbone. Kurt had removed his fingers almost all the way to let him come, but now he curls them right back inside, and Blaine's body just fucking melts, sinks around those fingers as if there had never been any resistance to begin with. His cock dribbles weakly onto Kurt's skin. "OhfuckKurt, that feels—" Something is just looser, and it's so much better and all of the sudden, not fucking enough. "More, okay? More, please."
Kurt reaches over and plucks a condom off the nightstand, ripping it open with his teeth and panting, face red, up at Blaine. "Can you stay there? Want to watch you, is that okay?"
Blaine moans, arches his back and feels his ass spread around Kurt's fingers. "Please."
Kurt puts the condom on and then reapplies the lubricant, to himself and to Blaine, and then he strokes across Blaine's hip bones and presses the head of his cock to Blaine's pucker. "Go slow. We have all the time in the world. Just press down into me, okay? Yeah, just like that. Oh—god. Oh god you are so fucking tight." It's not even an inch or so in and Kurt is clenched up so completely everywhere, like it's too much already.
It hurts at first, and Blaine tries to breathe and sink down and not let it worry him. Kurt is big; he'd expected it to be much worse, so this isn't that bad. Inch by inch he settles, twisting Kurt's fingers in his, whimpering and sweating and feeling his heart pound. He doesn't want to stop; Kurt is inside him, hard and his, all his, fuck.
He bottoms out and just stops, breathing heavily, body twitching in odd places and his muscles screaming at him.
"Jesus Christ this is not going to last very long," Kurt breathes frantically.
Once his body gets used to that first push, it doesn't seem quite so difficult. He puts his hands back on the headboard for leverage and leans back, rocking his hips experimentally.
"Blaine."
God, he did that, he made Kurt's face twist up in beautiful anguish, he made Kurt's cock twitch inside of him. A giddy rush of power and pleasure shoots through him, and he starts moving, brief little backwards and and forwards thrusts, and god, he is so fucking full, Kurt's cock is moving in him, Kurt's hips rolling into him carefully, so carefully.
The more he moves, the easier it gets, and the more he has to move to feel it; inside it doesn't feel like much more than pressure and fullness, almost all the way into his belly, but his actual hole and his cheeks and everything connected to his ass feels alive and eager and he realizes that he's fucking down into Kurt hard and fast now, legs spread and body bouncing. Kurt is slamming up into him, the muscles across his belly and chest contracting with breath and effort.
Blaine can't come again so soon but he needs Kurt to come, he needs it more than he needs anything done to him right now. "Yeah, come," Blaine growls, slamming down at an angle, almost angrily, using the headboard to lean forward and ride Kurt's cock. "Come in me, come on. Come in me." The bed protests underneath them and the lubricant bottle falls on its side and Kurt's fingers dig into his hips, fingernails pinching, hips snapping up, balls slapping against his cheeks, and finally finally Kurt snarls something unintelligible and comes, hands around Blaine's cheeks.
Blaine collapses forward, exhausted. All he can feel is Kurt's cock soften a little and the weird drag of the latex against his skin.
They don't talk for a long while. They just breathe together, cooling off. Eventually, Blaine shifts forward, letting Kurt slide out of his body. It feels strange being empty after all of that. Kurt reaches down, rolls the condom off, twists it to tie it and throws it over the edge of the bed.
"Jesus, Blaine," he says, pressing his sweaty face to Blaine's equally sweaty hair. It's a mess of damp curls.
"That was incredible. You are incredible," Blaine murmurs.
When Blaine wakes up, he realizes that the sun is very much not where it was the last time he was awake and noticing these kinds of things. He gives a start and grabs his phone off the nightstand. "Shit. Kurt. Kurt."
"Whassit? Hm?"
"The concert. We're missing it."
There is a long pause, and then Kurt rolls over, wrapping his arms and his legs around Blaine's body. "Fuck it."
"What?"
"The tickets were free, anyway, and I don't want to only see part of it. If we missed it that's fine; I just want to stay here with you."
Blaine's heart clenches. He sighs. "Can I still be Lindsey Buckingham for Halloween?"
Kurt laughs, and kisses him. "Of course you can."
They order room service later that night, and the second the food is consumed they go back to bed. They don't have sex again; they're both tired and drained and honestly, it had been the most intense sex they'd ever had and Blaine just wants to roll in it, wants to think about it and touch Kurt's body and kiss every inch of his skin without trying to replicate the experience. Not to mention he's sore as hell. He grins at that, and Kurt asks him what's so funny, and he just shakes his head and pulls the blankets up around them again.
The next morning they take advantage of a continental breakfast and then check out.
Going home doesn't even feel awkward, that is how high Blaine is flying right now. They hold hands non-stop all the way back to the city. When they get home Kurt takes Blaine out for sushi, and they talk about everything and nothing. Blaine has no calls or texts from Rachel but he isn't concerned; most likely she is just busy. She has a more demanding work schedule and a more active social life than he does at this point.
*
The apartment is empty and he gets a text from Rachel telling him that's stuck spending her Saturday with a client in upstate New York. He and Kurt go down to the grocer on the corner and then come back to the apartment and bake cookies. It's the first time that Kurt has ever been here and he insists that cookies are the only way to celebrate the event.
Blaine tries not to feel embarrassed; there are pictures of Rachel and him and Rachel everywhere and there's nothing he can do about that. Kurt only remarks once, "She's gorgeous." They pointedly do not approach the bedroom, but they do end up making out on the couch.
“Your couch is the best couch,” Kurt moans as they dry-hump and paw at each other’s clothes.
“Mm, lay down.”
“Oh, do you have plans?”
Blaine unbuttons and unzips Kurt’s fly (he’s wearing these ridiculously tight black pants that make Blaine want to peel them off) and licks at Kurt’s belly. “My plans are also the best plans.” He pushes Kurt’s underwear down and presses his face to Kurt’s hip, breathing in deeply. He kisses Kurt’s hips and pelvis and bellybutton and finally, finally runs his parted lips down the shaft of his cock.
“Ohfuck.”
How they’ve gone six months without Blaine doing this he has no idea. How he’s gone his entire life without a smooth, hard cock between his lips he has no idea. He sucks the head into his mouth and takes a breath and just sinks down, no hesitation, until he can’t go any farther without choking. God, it feels good.
“You said you’ve never done this before?” Kurt breathes, fisting on hand in Blaine’s hair.
Blaine pushes Kurt’s thighs apart a little and slides a hand under to squeeze his balls. He bobs up and down, up and down, sucking hard, then licking and using his hand when his jaw starts to ache. God, Kurt is fucking gorgeous like this, spread and hips snapping up just a little, scrubbing his fingers through Blaine’s hair and down along his scalp.
“Feels so good,” Kurt groans.
He works Kurt’s cock in his hand for a while, heart pounding, watching for signs that Kurt is getting close. Kurt’s stomach muscles tighten and his face gets very red and his back arches and fuck the way he looks right now, so fucking close, Jesus.
“Blaine,” he sobs.
“Would you—in my mouth?”
“Ohfuckplease.”
Blaine puts the head back into his mouth and Kurt just loses it, thrusting deep and holding his head in place and filling his mouth with warm, bitter rushes of come.
Blaine whimpers, throbbing against the couch cushions, and swallows despite the flavor, fucking shaking he is so aroused, and he pulls off with a sharp inhale. Kurt thumbs a smear of come from the corner of his mouth and pushes it inside, working his thumb in and out of Blaine’s pursed lips.
Blaine laughs soft and content, pressing his cheek to Kurt’s thigh.
They sleep for hours.
When they wake up, Kurt kisses Blaine, hard and fast. “Turn around for me?” Apparently he’s been awake watching Blaine’s naked body in slumber for a while; he’s already rock hard.
Blaine does, and bites his lip as Kurt bends him over the back of the couch. Kurt disappears for a second, and then comes back with lube and condoms. Blaine’s brain fucking explodes with want; he can still feel the thrill of blowing Kurt earlier, and he never had come, after all.
He whimpers as Kurt’s fingers, slick with lube, stroke his cock. Something impatient and ridiculously needy takes him over and he swats Kurt’s hand away.
“Just fuck me,” he exhales. He knows that Kurt wants to be careful, wants to take all the discomfort out of it but he just wants to feel it, he needs to feel his body stretch around Kurt’s thick cock.
Kurt whines against the back of his neck and spears him quickly with his fingers. It’s not that he’s any looser than he was yesterday, but he’s used to the feeling now, and he relaxes, spreading himself open and rolling his hips.
“Please,” he gasps.
“Fuck, Blaine.” Kurt presses and rocks up on his knees, and sinks inside in one slow thrust.
“Ohgodyes, pleaseplease.”
There isn’t much talk after that; Kurt just fucks him, and it feels so different than being on top, it feels like Kurt is just taking, slamming into him, and Blaine isn’t sure about the prostate stuff at this angle or speed but he doesn’t care. He jerks himself to Kurt’s rhythm and feels Kurt’s balls slap his cheeks.
“Close,” he gasps.
“Gonna make yourself come for me? Yeah, come on. Come on. Come for me.”
“Kurt, shit.”
“So tight.”
“Oh, fuck.” He comes all over the couch cushions with Kurt still deep inside him; that’s apparently all it takes, because Kurt cries out and bites into his shoulder and slams him forward and comes.
*
After a nap and a quick shower, they decide to take a walk.
Blaine starts throwing out ideas for things they could do to eat up the rest of the evening. They're walking hand-in-hand. Kurt is tucked up against his side so that they are touching from shoulder to fingers, as if hand-holding just isn't enough. They keep stumbling over each other's inside foot but it doesn't matter. Sometimes it feels as if he can't get close enough.
There is a flash of brown hair and the thin height of someone brushing past them, a familiar face and Blaine flinches and his stomach sinks; it's the first time he's seen anyone he knows while out with Kurt, and the identity of the person hits him like a slap to the face. He thinks that the man might not have noticed them, and that seems to hold true for a moment before a nasty voice comes from behind them.
"Well, well, well."
They keep walking.
"If it isn't Mighty Mouse and his gay bar superstar."
Blaine knows that he shouldn't stop; his heart is pounding and his face is heating up. Kurt is the one that stops them and glances over his shoulder.
"Where do I know him from?" he says, quietly, face drawing up into irritation.
"Oh, this is too good." Sebastian slowly walks toward them. "I mean, not-so-clandestine strip club visits and office phone sex aside, this is probably the ballsiest I've ever seen you, Anderson."
Kurt frowns. Blaine begins to shake, panic clawing his insides. "How...?"
"Please," Sebastian snorts. "I go there, too remember? Those boys are as gossipy as washerwomen and twice as eager to dish dirt for an extra twenty in their g-string. And then one day I was coming back from lunch and overheard a very interesting conversation. I figured it was just you and the little missus getting your kink on, but then you named your phone buddy. Surprise, surprise."
"How the fuck do you know my name?" Kurt demands.
"Dirt. Extra twenty. Your co-workers are assholes. I'm sorry; I get very cranky when I have to repeat myself." His grin makes Blaine want to smash his fucking face in. "I was going to save this to ruin your one year review with Figgins but fuck it, early birthday present for me. Won't take long for it to get around, and your wife is at the end of that scandalous Chinese whisper. Naughty, naughty."
"Sebastian," Blaine says, vibrating with anger and shame and fear. "Why are you doing this?"
"Are you really that oblivious? You're up for promotion. Turns out we both are, despite the fact that I have seniority over you in every way possible."
"Blaine," Kurt says, softly, trying to slow things down. He must know how close Blaine is to snapping, and they are out on the street and everyone that walks by is looking at them and this is not the time.
"God, I am bored. Even infidelity-related gay outings are boring when you're in them." He grins, waves the fingers of one hand at them. "Next week is going to be so awesome. Ta, ladies."
And he walks away.
Blaine jerks, as if to go after him, but Kurt just holds him tighter. "No. No. It won't change anything."
"I am going to kill him."
"No, you're not. Blaine. Blaine." He sighs. "God, that was like When Rodents Attack." Blaine hobbles several steps and collapses onto a bench. Kurt sits quietly next to him. "What do you need me to do?"
"Why are you so fucking calm right now?"
"Because I am powerless here? Because I don't know what to do?"
"Fuck, I'm sorry." He stares ahead into nothing, feeling blankness settle over his chest. “Kurt, I need to be alone. I—can you go? I just can’t…right now.”
The wounded look on Kurt’s face makes him hurt. “Okay. Okay.”
He goes home and types up a letter of resignation. There’s no point in trying to stay on as long as Sebastian is there, whether he spreads the truth or not. Blaine would never be able to navigate that morass, and Sebastian would sabotage him at every turn regardless. Filing a complaint or even trying to take legal action would just mean the truth about his inappropriate behavior (phone sex, Jesus, what had he been thinking?) and infidelity being spread faster and wider, and that’s the last thing he wants. To say nothing of Kurt being dragged into it and his “profession” being stated, no; Blaine can’t let that happen, he knows that Kurt isn’t ashamed of what he does to pay the rent but he doesn’t want the world to know about it in one broad stroke, either.
He emails the letter to Figgins, not expecting a response until Monday, but he gets a call barely an hour later. It’s a difficult conversation. He can’t give much detail. He apologizes profusely for the short notice and stresses that it’s a personal issue. He emails whatever current projects he’s working on to the person who covers for him, just to make sure that there are no loose ends.
He watches the clock, and waits for Rachel to come home.
As if he is finally getting the punishment he deserves, she doesn’t come home that night. He does not sleep or eat, and by the following morning he feels like a breathing corpse. He sits in the living room and waits. His whole body hurts, and it feels as if he’s just painful skin and muscle strapped around a hollow shell. His ears ring. His eyes are so dry that they burn.
When the door finally opens, he almost cries; his chest hitches and he can feel his tear ducts try to make tears and fail. He would do anything, anything to stop this from hurting so much.
“Oh my god I need to tell you about this woman,” she moans, kicking off her shoes. And then she looks at him. “Blaine? Oh my god, Blaine, what’s wrong?”
He realizes that this is it. There is literally no other direction to go in, no other avenue to explore.
He stares at her. “Rachel, I’m in love with someone else.” And that does it; the tears start, and they’re hot on his face. He doesn’t even cry; it’s just tears, involuntary and terrible.
She makes a small, unbearably hurt whimper and then bites her lips together. The silence is massive, and then she says, “I know.” Her eyes fill with tears. “I’m not stupid. You changed. You changed the minute that name appeared in your phone. You never introduced him to me. I’m not stupid, Blaine.”
“I am—”
“Don’t. Just don’t. Of course you’re sorry. At first I just thought I’d wait and let you tell me. Months and months went by and you didn’t. Then it was just a matter of forgetting it. Hoping it might pass, that it was just something you needed to get out of your system.” She winces. “Not, not the gay part, I—I mean the being with someone else part. I thought, maybe I’m his exception?” She laughs, hurt. “I am stupid.”
He shakes his head, speechless with pain and shame and fear. “You’re not. How—how did you know I was…?”
Tears stream down her face. “Little things. Mostly the fact that you never seemed to notice women at all besides me.” She’s still clutching her purse. “Is he—who is he?”
“He’s a dancer. Singer. He’s a student at NYADA.” He’s everything I ever wanted to be but was too scared to try to be. So scared that it never even occurred to me. “He is—amazing.”
She nods, lips quivering. “Blaine,” she says, brokenly.
He can’t touch her. He knows he should, but he can’t. “I’ll move out. I’ll keep on paying half of the bills until you figure out what you want to do. I had to—Rachel, I had to quit my job. Someone at work found out, someone who wanted to take a promotion from me. He—he isn’t going anywhere and I can’t have this get out, it would be—so much worse than it already is. But I’ll do anything, I’ll go back to freelance stuff, I’ll brush up on my CAD and start doing red-lines again, I won’t let you lose this place, okay?”
“I can’t stay here. I’ll need something smaller. And Blaine, I—I don’t need your money, either.”
He knows that she doesn’t, but it kills him anyway. “I am so sorry. I know it means nothing.”
“Why couldn’t you just talk to me when you met him, when you started feeling something, why?”
“At first I needed to be sure, I never, I never felt that way before about another man and then it—it was so good,” he moans, miserably, “I just wanted it for myself, I was selfish and horrible, Rachel, what else can I say?”
“No, I know, it’s—nothing is going to make this okay for me right now and I know that, but.”
He nods. What can he do? What can she do? It’s awful. The worst part of it all is that he just wants to leave. He can’t bear to look at her devastated face.
“You can go,” she whispers, shaking. “Please go.”
He catches her eye one last time before he slips out the door.
Kurt doesn’t answer his calls or texts. He hasn’t updated his Facebook status or tweeted or anything, so Blaine has no idea where or how he is. He forces himself to eat something to stave off the dizziness, and pointedly does not go anywhere near a bar. He calls Kurt again and again and again, and eventually gives up and goes to the club, where he’s given the brush off by a manager.
So he goes over to the bar. “Hey, Will.”
“Hey yourself,” the bartender replies. “What can I get you?”
“No thanks, not tonight. Have you seen Porcelain?”
The man stares at him for a long moment. “Yeah, earlier. He quit.”
Blaine’s body tenses. “He quit?”
“Yep. Said he’d got that singing job he was going for and they wanted him to start tonight.”
His mind goes in a dozen directions at once. “Did he say where?” Would it be the same bar?
“Can’t help you there.”
Shit.
“Will, thanks. You’ve been a friend.” He has covered for Kurt and Blaine a dozen different times.
Just as he's almost out the door Will calls out, "Hey, kid? You make him happy, okay? He deserves it.”
Blaine smiles for the first time that day. “I’m going to try.”
But he’s got to find him first.
*
Kurt isn't at home and he isn't at the bar that he'd played the only time that Blaine had got to see him sing. Blaine starts to go a little stir crazy. What to do? He can only keep calling, and in the meantime he needs to get a motel room or something because it's dark and he can't go home.
He loses track of how long he walks. At some point he ends up in a small out of the way park and he sits on a bench to watch people jogging and walking their dogs. He glances down at the wedding ring on his left hand and slowly, deliberately takes it off. He slides it into his bag and lets out a long breath.
All of the sudden, his phone vibrates. He picks it up so quickly that he almost turns it off and he curses, fumbling. There is a text from Kurt.
can you come? 9:30
And there's an address. A different bar.
His heart actually skips a beat, and he is standing and jogging toward the nearest subway entrance he can find before he even has time to think about what he's doing.
When he arrives, Kurt is introducing himself to the audience.
"...short notice, so all I've got the time and talent for tonight is just one, but hopefully you'll enjoy it." He's wearing a simple pair of black dress trousers, a black shirt, and a gray vest, but his hair is done up in an ornate high sweep and he's wearing just a little bit of eyeliner.
The music is soft, understated.
Kurt glances out into the audience and Blaine doesn't hide this time. Something sweet and simple makes the muscles in Kurt's face relax, and with the most gentle smile imaginable, he begins to sing.
Share my life, take me for what I am
'Cause I'll never change all my colors for you
Take my love, I'll never ask for too much
Just all that you are and everything that you do
I don't really need to look very much further
I don't want to have to go where you don't follow
I won't hold it back again, this passion inside
I can't run from myself, there's nowhere to hide
Don't make me close one more door
I don't wanna hurt anymore
Stay in my arms if you dare
Or must I imagine you there
Don't walk away from me
I have nothing, nothing, nothing
If I don't have you, you, you, you, you
You see through, right to the heart of me
You break down my walls with the strength of your love
I never knew love like I've known it with you
Will a memory survive, one I can hold on to
I don't really need to look very much further
I don't want to have to go where you don't follow
I won't hold it back again, this passion inside
I can't run from myself, there's nowhere to hide
Your love I'll remember forever
Oh, don't make me close one more door
I don't wanna hurt anymore
Stay in my arms if you dare
Or must I imagine you there
Don't walk away from me
I have nothing, nothing, nothing
Don't make me close one more door
I don't wanna hurt anymore
Stay in my arms if you dare
Or must I imagine you there
Don't walk away from me, no
Don't walk away from me
Don't you dare walk away from me
I have nothing, nothing, nothing
If I don't have you, you
If I don't have you, oh you
Each passage is a plea and a promise, and by the end he's bowed over the microphone, hands in fists, riding the high notes like they were designed for him. It's incredible, he's incredible, and so, so very worth it.
When he's done, tears on his cheeks, and the music and applause has faded, Blaine walks up to the edge of the stage. Everyone in the small bar is watching them. He holds up his hand and Kurt takes it and pulls him up the short distance.
Blaine grins. They get some applause and cat-calls. He lifts Kurt's right hand in his left, and threads their fingers together.
Kurt gives a start and glances down at their hands, finding the empty space where a wedding ring had been. His face convulses for just a moment, and tears well up in his eyes. A wild grin breaks across his features, dimples so deep that you could get lost in them. Blaine just looks at him, looks until his vision is blurred by tears.
"I'm yours," Blaine says, voice shaky and full of love, and he doesn't realize that the microphone is still on until the entire bar starts clapping and shouting.
Kurt laughs and dives into his arms. "And what are you going to follow that with? I think I just lost my audience."
He kind of likes being up there with everyone watching. "Actually, I was planning on going back to school for a music degree. Taking up the guitar. Adopting a cat. Being with you forever." His eyes soften, and Kurt's fingertips play over the slightly indented flesh on his ring finger.
"Is it too soon to say I do?" he says, half-crying and half-joking, and the crowd claps again. "And that I am allergic to cats?"
Laughing, Blaine takes Kurt's face in his hands and kisses him for all the world to see.