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Fic: A Song Without Words (R)

Artist: keepwaitingorstartwalking

Word Count: 8500

Summary: While taking a detour on his way home from work, Kurt comes across a music box in the window of an antiques shop and feels compelled to take a closer look.

I was very excited to write for such interesting and stunning art for this year’s reverse bang. keepwaitingorstartwalking did such a fabulous job!

Thanks to Emily for beta reading! <3

Can also be read on AO3.

Art post is here.

Part One

It’s not quite raining, but the air is thick with moisture and Kurt feels damp all over. His face is clammy and his clothes beaded as though abandoned outside all night to be covered in dew. He’s chilled to the bone and wants nothing more than to curl up in his comfiest pyjamas with a hot drink and a magazine. He rushes past shops and people, jumping over a puddle left from the day before. There is a crowd formed on the corner exactly where he usually crosses the street, so he rolls his eyes and shoulders on past and down to the next crossing.

In the window amongst old dolls and tin signs and a mishmash of other junk, sits a music box. It’s lovely: rounded, about the size of a fortune teller’s crystal ball, glass and metal filigree and porcelain with a tiny man on top, seated at a grand piano. His clothes are bright and cheery, but his face looks sad. Kurt leans in to get a better look at him when a bike courier drives by and splashes day-old rainwater and mud all over his pants. “Hey!” Kurt yells after him, but he just rides on. Kurt hitches up his bag and stomps away toward the train station, cursing under his breath about bikers on the sidewalk.

Later that night after he’s had a hot shower and some soup and tea, he remembers the pretty music box. He almost feels panicked at the thought of it, at the thought of it being gone, and he resolves to go back and take a better look at it the next day after work. Ah, work… Kurt sighs and grabs his bag, searching inside for the sheet music.

During the night he dreams of mist, deep and grey and nearly impenetrable, and wakes with a longing the likes of which he has never felt.

~*~*~*~

It really is raining the next day, and Kurt is forced to buy a cheap umbrella from one of the vendors who pop out of the woodwork whenever the drops begin to fall. He’d forgotten his own umbrella that morning in his rush to leave his apartment in time to catch the train, and is seconds away from being caught in a downpour when he spots a man with a box of umbrellas. He shoves the five dollars at him, even though he probably could have talked him down in price, pops it open and hides underneath. He’s careful to keep it high enough as not to knock into the one of the rainbow of similar umbrellas all around him, a sea of nylon arches protecting the sidewalk.

He barely speaks a word all day. He shows Mae his progress on the rewrite and cloisters himself in the music room, only coming out to buy a coffee from the small shop just outside. They know his order and he smiles his thank you, and feels his voice shrivel inside his throat. Sometimes he wonders if it is possible to go mute from lack of speaking; if he will awake one day and forget how to form words at all. He vows to call his father that night, or to try again to meet Rachel for coffee, and he hurries back through the rain.

After work he passes by his usual crosswalk again and hurries through the rain past the brightly coloured flowers of the bodega and stops outside of the antiques shop. One of the gutters above the storefront is cracked and water streams down, pooling in the warn, striped awning overhead and running steadily over the window. Through the rain streaks Kurt can still make out the soft, blurred shape of the music box and he rushes to open the door, wondering why his hands are shaking so violently.

A bell jingles happily when he steps inside, a dank, musty smell clogging his nose and dust motes swirling in the beams of the many lamps that are lit around the cluttered shop. Kurt doesn’t spare any of the other curios a glance, but turns and takes three long strides to the window.

He stares at it for a moment, lit by the muted light of the dull, rainy day. It looks more substantial at close range, more real. Kurt stares at the sad face of the piano man and feels his heart twist. The strange longing it brings about makes him pause, but when he hears footsteps close behind he snatches up the music box and holds it against his chest.

"You’ve taken a liking to that, have you?" Kurt swings around to see a tiny old lady looking up at him with a smile. She’s missing several teeth and the shawl around her neck is tattered and faded.

Kurt nods vaguely and looks down at the music box, loosening his grip somewhat and holding it away from his chest so he doesn’t look like a crazy person. “How much is it?” he asks, his voice quavering a little. He clears his throat, the sound turning into a high pitched whimper when the lady reaches out and pries the music box from his hands. He flickers his fingers about his mouth to stop any further embarrassing sounds from emerging and shoves his other hand in his pocket.

He hopes she doesn’t want a lot for it because he’s already spent his month’s allotment of fun money on a gorgeous cashmere scarf that he’d found online for a steal. But there is always the emergency credit card… This is not an emergency, he tells himself. Although it feels like one to his banging heart and the horrible waves of anxiety breaking in his stomach as the old lady examines the music box, poking at the metal framework and running calloused fingers over the beautiful piano player.

“I’ll take it!” Kurt exclaims. He can no longer keep quiet and allow her to molest him. It. Even though she’s sure to ask a higher price now that she knows how desperately he wants it. But he just feels…compelled. Like the thing is luring him in; like it’s producing some sort of magic gas that’s attracting Kurt to it.

He stretches out his hands, fingertips gently caressing the glass side and the lady gives him the once over. She nods swiftly and pulls the music box away from his reaching grasp. “Seventy-five dollars,” she says, her eyes challenging. She probably wants him to barter with her, but he can’t bring himself to do it. He needs the music box back in his hands. He feels like she may damage it somehow if she holds onto it any longer.

“Fine,” he replies, and he rummages around in his wallet for the emergency credit card while he follows her to the back of the shop.

~*~*~*~

Back in his apartment, Kurt sets the music box down gently on the table before removing his jacket. He takes two steps towards the kitchen before turning back, eyes finding the tiny man with his smart, colourful suit and sad eyes. “Let’s see what it is you play,” Kurt’s says into the empty room.

He finds the winder on the bottom and turns it until it will no longer move. The music that rings out when he lets go it lovely and delicate. It’s familiar to him, but he can’t seem to place it—a melancholy, haunting piece that has him swallowing deeply and blinking back moisture.

"You play it so well," he tells the piano man, laughing at himself as he steps into the kitchen to make himself dinner. As he’s chopping vegetables and measuring rice, he hums the half-remembered melody, vague ideas of lyrics beginning to piece together in his head.

The music box sits next to him as he goes over his work that evening, fighting with a few bars that just don’t seem to fit, and he gives it one parting glance before turning out the lights and heading to bed.

~*~*~*~

While Kurt sleeps, the music he is composing for work bends and twists and reshapes itself into the haunting melody of the music box and he is lost in mist and shadows. Everything is echoing, muffled, but in the distance he can hear a voice speaking rapidly and without pausing for breath. He breathes for this phantom, this disembodied soul, deeply and steadily as if he could share the burden, but his help turns into hindrance when the voice shushes him and yells his name as the thick, sticky mist gets caught in his throat.

He wakes up coughing and later when he’s brushing his teeth, he spits up foam that is grey like ash and thinks that perhaps he is losing his mind.

~*~*~*~

The next day is unbearable. The rain has left behind an oppressive heaviness in the air, like it wasn’t quite finished and will be back to carry on when it is good and ready. Kurt mops his brow with a handkerchief, sighing as he rucks his bag’s strap further up his shoulder. He’d given up his seat to an extremely pregnant woman and now he’s swaying back and forth as the train trundles on. He blinks hugely. He thinks he could probably fall asleep standing up as he is, what with the broken and unsatisfying rest of the night still making him fuzzy around the edges.

He has finished polishing the final composition for the first act by ten o’clock, and takes it down to Mae. “What was that you were humming, Kurt?” she asks as he’s leaving her room. “It didn’t sound like something from the show.”

Kurt pauses, fingers clasping the doorframe. He hadn’t even realized. He looks over his shoulder and smiles at her. “Oh, no it’s—”

She winks. “Something just for you, I think. Keep your secrets.”

Kurt laughs and closes the door behind him. His work is often quiet and lonely, but composing with Mae over the past few months has been better than most of his other jobs.

When he gets back to the piano in the music room, he finds some fresh paper and sets his fingers on the keys, a pencil between his teeth. He’s made enough progress on the show, he decides, and starts trying to play the music in his head instead.

He has a few passages figured out and has even written lyrics to accompany them by the time the clock ticks over to three. He calls it a day. His eyes are heavy and he is of no use as he is, so he promises to work on some melodies at home and packs up his things.

The music box is still sitting on the table where he left it when he tosses his bag on a chair. He slides down next to it and winds it up, and watches the piano player as the music begins. He knows he must be imagining things, but the painted on eyes seem less glum, the mouth holding more of an uptilt than it previously had. But of course he is wrong. Maybe Kurt himself is just in a better mood and seeing through different eyes.

~*~*~*~

His dreams are more of the same, more mist and smoke and confusion. He hears the voice in brighter clarity this time, and when he wakes, sneezing and eyes streaming, there is a name on his lips. And he’s not sure how it got there.

~*~*~*~

“Good morning, my little piano man,” Kurt says over a yawn as he ambles by the table and into the kitchen to make some coffee. As he sets it percolating, he remembers and leans against the counter, his face drawn in confusion. It’s there, along with the memory of darkness and heavy mist. “Blaine,” he whispers. Then shakes his head and reaches for the cereal.

~*~*~*~

The little piano man, Blaine, really looks as though he’s smiling when Kurt returns from work.

“Why do I feel like that’s your name?” Kurt asks him, running his fingertips over the top of his head and down his arms to the miniature black and white keys of the piano. “Well, it suits you, I suppose,” he muses. “As does your suit. Very dapper.” Kurt laughs at himself and picks at the hinge of the music box, half closing the glass dome that rests over Blaine. He brings it down over top of him for a moment, but then feels a stab of guilt at the creek and the click of the lid closing and hastily lifts it once again. “Sorry about that. I wouldn’t want to be trapped in there; it would be a little claustrophobic.”

“God,” Kurt says with a sigh, pulling off his jacket and setting his sheet music down on the table. “I really need a boyfriend. This is pathetic.”

~*~*~*~

It sounds like thunder in Kurt’s dream that night, the ear-splitting crashes blocking out the desperate cries of the dream-voice. “Please, Kurt!” he hears through the storm. “Save me, please! You must. You must. The song—”

There is a flash of heat as the racket swallows up the pleading voice. Kurt feels as though he is drowning, but in a substance both hot and sticky. He prays for water, but he can’t even manage tears.

“The song!” the dream-voice says again, far-off and muffled. There is one last loud bang and Kurt awakens. Outside his window, the thunder crashes and the sky is lit up with lightning. The storm is close. Kurt lifts one shaky hand and wipes at his damp cheeks.

After a moment of hesitation he slides off the bed and pads out of his room. The music box is sitting where he left it, innocuous, stationary, but he feels a stab of panic at the sight of it. He closes the lid and takes it inside, hiding it at the very back of his closet before climbing under the protective warmth of his covers.

~*~*~*~

At work that day, Kurt sets aside the sheet music for the second act’s opening number and finishes writing down what he remembers of the music box melody.

~*~*~*~

He stops at the bodega next to the antiques shop on his way home, picking up some fresh vegetables and a bouquet of bright orange gerbera daisies. He’s sniffing them as he walks by the antiques shop when something strange catches the corner of his eye, stopping him in his tracks. He must have seen wrong. He shakes his head and lowers the flowers before turning abruptly, much to the annoyance of the man behind him. But his eyes had not betrayed him. The shop is empty, its dirt-streaked window full of nothing, and no sign of the peeling letters that had been affixed to the glass. Surely if the shop had closed down in the past few days since he had purchased the music box, there would be some indication that the letters had been there. Some left behind traces of paint or gumminess. And the window is not clean enough to have been freshly scrubbed. Kurt takes two steps towards it and peers inside. It is empty. Abandoned. Nothing but dust and cobwebs living in a derelict shell. It looks as though it has been that way for years.

He rushes home and immediately logs on to his bank and checks his credit card purchases. There is no sign of the seventy-five dollar charge for the music box anywhere.

~*~*~*~

That night, Kurt doesn’t dream and wakes up with guilt piercing his insides. He walks into his closet on shaky feet and unearths the hidden music box. And when he opens the lid, the piano man has the old, despondent look about his sweet, painted features.

“Blaine,” Kurt whispers, and sets him down on his nightstand.

~*~*~*~

On Saturday, Kurt puts the finishing touches on the song, winding up the music box to follow along with the notes on his sheet music. The voice had been silent in his misty dream the night before, but he felt the closeness of a presence nearby and the memory of his pleas would not leave Kurt’s head.

“It seems I have a very good memory, don’t I, Blaine? Except for the part where I can’t remember where I’ve heard this music before.” He looks down at the top of the shiny black hair and sighs. “I suppose I should get dressed or do something productive today. Maybe Rachel’s free for lunch.”

Kurt winds up the music box one more time, smiling down at Blaine’s handsome little face before slipping out of bed to find an outfit to wear. He begins singing along quietly, the lyrics he’d been adding to the melody taking shape as he utters them aloud for the first time.

He’s two steps into his closet and letting his voice ring out on the final note when he hears an ear-splitting crack and a thump and the delicate shattering of glass against the hardwood floor. The music box. He lets out a strangled cry and pitches himself out of the closet.

But the smashed music box is the last thing to catch his notice, because there, lying on his bed, is a fully grown Blaine, blinking up at him with wide eyes, perfect lips drawn in a surprised ‘O’. “Kurt?” he whispers, and Kurt feels his vision swim as he collapses.

~*~*~*~

Part Two

“Please wake up,” a soft voice is pleading. Kurt feels dampness, a methodic sweeping of a wet cloth over his face. Across the forehead, down the right cheek, over the chin, up the left cheek—over and over until he blinks his eyes open.

And if Kurt was hallucinating before he fainted, well, he still is, because above him is Blaine looking down with the most tender expression of genuine worry that Kurt has ever seen.

He forces himself upright, unintentionally knocking Blaine’s gentle hand from his face. He blinks in confusion at his nightstand, where his Brita water pitcher and a large mixing bowl are sitting. Blaine drops the washcloth into the bowl and pours a stream of the cold, filtered water on top of it. Okay, so maybe Kurt is still hallucinating after all.

“What are you—” he begins, then shakes his head when Blaine reaches into the mixing bowl to pick up the cloth and wring it out.

“These are strange belongings you have,” Blaine says. His voice holds a sweet hesitation that Kurt finds immediately endearing. “I have never seen such a water pitcher. It is so light, and you can see clear through it!”

“Um, it’s for filtering the tap water so it doesn’t taste like chemicals,” Kurt says. As Blaine furrows his thick eyebrows, Kurt begins to think this may very well be the strangest conversation he has ever had.

Blaine turns his body slightly and lifts the pitcher into the air, studying the way the light of the sun through the window makes the water glow. “I have never heard of such a thing,” he says in confusion. “How very strange.” He runs his thumb over the handle as he sets the pitcher back down on the tabletop. “What is this transparent material?”

“Um…plastic.” Okay, so nevermind the part where he grew to full size out of a damn music box, Kurt is finding Blaine to be the slightest bit odd, and no matter how at ease he feels in his presence, he begins to think that maybe he really ought not to be. Because Blaine seems a little…

“Plastic? I do not know what you mean.”

Kurt pulls himself the rest of the way into sitting and slides back against the headboard of his bed. “Plastic is kind of…everywhere. I mean, it’s the cheapest type of material these days. God, you can buy a plastic anything at a dollar store.”

Blaine scrunches up his nose. “You speak so strangely, Kurt. And I admit that I am very confused by all of the possessions that decorate your living space.” He reaches in behind the mixing bowl and pulls out Kurt’s phone. “For example, this. What the dickens is this? It keeps making odd sounds and lighting up from within. And the strangest thing, someone’s portrait appears in a little window.”

“That’s my cellphone.” When Blaine only stares at him blankly, Kurt leans forward and clarifies. “My telephone.”

Blaine stares down at it, pulling back slightly when Kurt reaches out to take it from his hand. “A telephone? Telegraph do you mean? But, people do not have telegraphs in their homes. And they are not such as this. What madness!”

“Oh my god.”

Blaine looks stunned at Kurt’s words and crosses himself, looking behind him as if Kurt must have seen something startling.

“Blaine, when are you from?”

“What do you mean? I was cursed. You broke the spell. I did not wish to bring it up, as you were so overcome when first you saw me, but I am very grateful to you. I have been trapped and petrified that I should be so forevermore.”

“What do you mean, cursed?” Kurt holds up his hands, shaking his head when Blaine opens his mouth to speak. They can get to that in due time. “First things first: what year were you born? What year were you…cursed?”

“The twelfth of March, eighteen-o-two. And I was cursed… A day in June—I cannot recall which—eighteen-twenty-two.”

“Oh my god,” Kurt says again.

Blaine’s eyes go wide and he looks back over his shoulder once more. “Why do you keep saying that?’ he whispers.

“It’s just an expression,” Kurt tells him. “Anyway, come on. I think I need to show you something.” Blaine steps back to allow Kurt to rise from the bed, averting his eyes as he does so, his pretty dark lashes batting against the tops of his cheekbones. His face looks warm, and when Kurt feels the cool air from a nearby vent blow across his bare legs, he realizes why.

“I’ll just, um, go finish getting dressed,” he mutters quickly, then takes three long strides to the closet and ducks inside.

~*~*~*~

The view from Kurt’s bedroom window is nothing but a back alley, and it is obvious that while Blaine was searching for implements with which to help Kurt after he’d fainted, he hadn’t stopped to peek out of the larger window in the living room. Because now, after Kurt has led him to it, he’s watching the traffic and the lights and the crowds of people with wide, frightened eyes.

“What happened to the city?” he asks quietly, his voice tremulous.

Kurt places a kind hand on his shoulder. “Time happened. It’s the year two-thousand-and-eighteen, Blaine. I’m so sorry, but you were trapped in that music box for almost two hundred years.”

Blaine’s face goes chalky, his body shaking under the steadiness of Kurt’s hand. “But whatever shall I do? I do not—I cannot—”

Kurt shushes him and wraps an arm around his waist, coaxing him away from the view that is so affecting him and bringing him to sit down on the sofa. “It’ll be okay. I promise. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

He lets his hand run up and down on instinct, soothing Blaine with the power of touch. Blaine is leaning into him now, and where perhaps he ought to feel strange—and truthfully, that is how Kurt feels when being touched by most people—he feels quite comfortable.

“We could go out and see more, if you’d like to. This is a pretty dreary part of town. I can take you to see so many amazing things, Blaine. And your outfit is surprisingly in style—they are always recycling fashions. If I took up the length of your dinner jacket, you’d be a near match for the Marc Jacobs men’s line from the fall.”

Blaine’s large eyes blink up at him. “This? But it is only a performance uniform. Imagine such colours in the everyday.”

Kurt laughs. “Oh, wait and see. We could maybe go shopping and get you a few more outfits. I have some things that I could alter to fit you.”

Blaine smiles and Kurt feels his heart flutter like bird’s wings in his chest. He really is the most beautiful man. “You are too kind,” Blaine says. “Whatever would I do if you were not here with me? Although, I suppose, if you were not I would still be trapped. Cursed to forever play a song without words. That’s the last thing he said.” Blaine voice goes quiet, quavering along with the hands he has pressed in his lap. “…before it happened.”

“About that…” Kurt isn’t really sure what to believe. Curses and magic just aren’t real, but how can he even argue them when Blaine was once a figurine seated at a miniature piano on the top of a music box, and now he is fully grown and human and warming Kurt’s side with his own. “I don’t understand what happened exactly. I mean, that’s the understatement of the century, but do you think maybe you could explain?”

Blaine hesitates for a second, his eyes flickering back towards the window and the tall buildings outside in a world he no longer knows. “Everything is so strange,” he says. “I have often wondered if I live entirely in a dream.”

“I know the feeling.”

Blaine laughs, his eyes crinkling adorably at the corners. “Yes, I suppose you do. My presence here is not helping with that I fear. But alas, what I have to tell you is god’s honest truth, as I remember it.” He turns to Kurt with a pleading expression and Kurt nods his reassurance. For good measure, he reaches out and takes hold of Blaine’s hand and gives it a squeeze.

“I was working at a dinner party, playing piano for the guests. I was a hired musician and doing quite well, due to the patronage of a lovely woman who took a liking to me when I was a boy. This particular party was to celebrate the return of her brother from abroad. At the party, a young girl took a liking to me and spent the majority of the evening sitting in a chair she had pulled up near the piano and watching me.

“It made me a little uncomfortable, but I attempted to smile and be pleasant nonetheless. After the party when I was gathering up my sheet music and preparing to go, a man approached me. He told me with no hint of propriety that even though I was below him in station, his only daughter had taken a fancy to me and would like to marry me. And that he was rich enough to keep us well.”

“And you…?”

Blaine shakes his head. “I said no. His face turned very colourful in his anger, nearly purple, and he began cursing me in a language that I had never heard before. And then, well, you know the rest.”

“So you got turned into a music box because you rejected a marriage proposal from a girl’s father?”

“I realize how mad that must sound, but yes. ‘To sing a song without words,’ he’d said. And when I heard you humming along to the music, I figured out the riddle at last.”

Kurt turns on the sofa and pulls his legs up, tucking his feet up under him and facing Blaine. It’s like something out of a Disney movie and he just doesn’t get it. “Because I gave the song words.” Blaine nods his head and smiles. “But still though—how? I get that he cursed you or whatever, but how? Things like that don’t just happen. It’s impossible.”

“I don’t know. Perhaps I was being punished by God and he was only acting through the man.”

Blaine’s eyes tear up as he says the words, his voice wobbling. The last thing Kurt wants is to upset him further when he must be shocked enough as it is. So he nods and pats Blaine’s arm and says he will fix them some tea. Kurt doesn’t believe in god, and he certainly has never believed in actual magic—at least not outside of the confines of a Broadway stage—but Blaine’s presence is proof of something. Whether or not he will ever discover what exactly remains to be seen.

As he’s boiling the kettle and getting the teapot ready, he thinks about Blaine’s refusal and all of the period films he had watched with Rachel in their dingy apartment in Bushwick. Why would a man of little money refuse to be married to a rich woman? People used to marry for money all the time as far as he knows, not that people still don’t do it now.

“Blaine?” he asks as he pours the hot water into the teapot. He sets it on a tray with two cups as well as cream, honey and sugar, and steps back into the living area. Blaine is watching him intently with his wide, golden eyes. Kurt gets the sudden urge to reach out and stroke his face and has to quash it. He shakes his head to clear it of the thought and sets the tray down on the coffee table. “Why did you not want to marry the man’s daughter?”

Blaine seems flustered by Kurt’s stare, so Kurt looks away and pours the aromatic, amber liquid into the two mismatched mugs. He hands one to Blaine, who adds a spoonful of sugar with a nod of thanks. His face looks flushed again, his eyes furtive as he glances towards the front door and then the window.

“I—It was not due to any failings on her part; she was a perfectly lovely girl, you must understand. But it did not seem fair that I should marry her when I did not—when I could not ever love her. Or any woman.”

Kurt stops with his tea cup halfway to his lips and stares. Oh. Well that was— “Blaine, do you mean— Is it because you have feelings for men?”

Blaine’s eyes bug out and he fumbles his tea, hissing when a hot drop lands on the side of his hand. He sets the cup hastily on the tray and looks up at Kurt, imploring. “Please, you mustn’t tell! I could be executed! I have never done anything. I tried to make it go away, but I just feel—”

Kurt rests both hands on Blaine’s shoulders and shushes him. “Blaine, Blaine, it’s okay. It’s all right, I promise. No one is going to…execute you. Oh my god, I can’t believe that’s a thing I have to—” Kurt shakes his head and meets Blaine’s eyes, making his own as soft as possible. “Things aren’t perfect, but it’s not that bad. We can even marry each other now. I mean, as two men. That is, two men can get married.”

Kurt feels his cheeks grow warm as he bumbles through the reassurances, but Blaine doesn’t seem to notice. “To each other?” he asks in awe.

“Yes.”

“But…does that mean they are allowed to—to kiss and hold hands and…share a bed without any—”

“Executions. Yeah, none of those. Not here. Some places in the world…but things are better here.”

Blaine nods and reaches for his tea once more. He takes two slow sips; he looks like he’s debating with himself. Kurt tries not to smile when he nods his head with determination and catches Kurt’s eye. “Kurt, I got the impression from your words that possibly—Do you share the same kind of…feelings as I do?”

Kurt smiles and tilts his head to one side. “These days we call it being gay. And yes, I am gay, too. With me it’s fairly obvious. Can’t you tell?”

Blaine’s eyebrows furrow and he stares down into his teacup. “No,” he says quietly. He looks back up and almost seems apologetic. “Should I be able to?”

“No, I suppose not,” Kurt says with a laugh.

Blaine smiles vaguely and takes another sip of his tea. It’s quiet for a moment, and Kurt wishes he had thought to get them something to snack on so he would have something else to do with his hands.

“Kurt, would it be all right if I asked you a question? I apologize in advance if it is too forward, or too inappropriate, but I am confused and you seem very worldly, and although we have only just met in an official capacity, I feel as though I have known you for some time and you put me very much at ease.”

Kurt smiles and leans forward, cupping one hand around Blaine’s knee. “Of course. You can ask me anything.”

“It’s only that—I do not truly understand the…intimacies that men share. Together. And how can I crave something that I do not comprehend?”

And that nearly makes Kurt choke on his tea. “You mean you want me to tell you about sex with men?”

Blaine worries his bottom lip between his teeth and nods slightly.

“Well, there’s—and I am in no way an expert or anything—but, like, you can use hands? Like you do to yourself but on each other?” Kurt swallows his discomfort as he looks at Blaine, whose eyes are fixed on him in rapt attention. “Or…mouths.” The word comes out like a croak and Kurt has to swallow again. He doesn’t miss the way Blaine watches his throat bob.

“Down…” Blaine begins. He too swallows deeply when Kurt nods. “Oh,” he breathes out. “That is not something I had ever considered.”

“And then, um, the only thing I have ever—I mean, you can sort of just rub against each other while kissing and stuff?”

“Lying down in bed?”

Kurt shrugs and studies his hands. “Or standing up or anywhere, really. Just…that. And then there’s, um, penetration, which some people don’t—You don’t have to do any of those things.”

“You mean sodomy. That’s a sin.”

Kurt sighs and looks back up at Blaine. “That’s not a very nice word, and honestly mostly only protesters use it these days. And it’s not a sin, Blaine. It’s just another way for people to…connect. But like I said, it’s not necessary, and lots of men don’t even do it.”

“But what if I would like to do it?”

“Well that would be, um…that would be your choice. A choice to make with your partner. I’m not a font of information here, sorry. I’ve never done it before, so—”

“Of course you haven’t,” Blaine says, his head tilted to one side. “You are unmarried.”

Kurt laughs and takes Blaine’s empty cup, setting it next to his on the tray and rising from the sofa to take it back into the kitchen. “Adorable,” he says under his breath. “You know, if you want to get cleaned up and changed, we can maybe go out? I can take you on a tour and out to eat?”

“If you would like to.”

He rinses out the cups with a sigh and walks back over to the sofa where Blaine is still seated. “Only if you’ll feel comfortable, Blaine. I know all of this—” He motions to the world around them. “—is a lot to take in. If you want to just hide in here for today, we can look at stuff online or something. Maybe watch a movie. Ooh, Pride and Prejudice. You can tell me how accurate it is and we can ogle Colin Firth in that see-through shirt! Though, I suppose that’s a little before your time…”

Kurt trails off when he notices the look of utter confusion and mild panic on Blaine’s face.

“Right, many confusing things in what I just said. How about I show you how to use the shower and get you something comfortable to wear and then we learn all about the twenty-first century, okay? It’ll be a piece of cake in no time, I promise.”

“We are going to have cake?”

“What? No. Another expression. Just, um, follow me.” God, he keeps screwing up and Blaine is so confused. He’s never been good at the whole teaching thing. When he’d volunteered at that theatre workshop when he was going to NYADA he’d spent most of the time wanting to scream at the little kids, let alone their parents.

Blaine follows along after him to the small bathroom, where Kurt finds him a fluffy towel and teaches him how to turn on the shower and adjust the temperature. He seems amazed by the water streaming out, turning it off and on and warm to cold several times until Kurt has to interrupt to show him his products. Blaine’s smile grows wide at the delicious scent of Kurt’s shampoo and laughs at the bright purple shower sponge. “Marvelous,” he keeps repeating, and Kurt is loath to leave him alone to get undressed. He doesn’t want to miss out on any of his adorably wide-eyed fascination.

But it’s only a few moments before Blaine is calling Kurt’s name loudly and Kurt rushes back into the bathroom. “Blaine, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Kurt! This is the most amazing thing I have ever felt!” he says. “The water is just falling from this…” But Kurt doesn’t hear the rest of Blaine’s raptures. He hadn’t meant to look, really, and it isn’t his fault that the shower curtain is completely transparent. Well, it is, seeing as how he bought it, but he didn’t buy it for this specific purpose. He had just wanted to let a little more light in, not let all of Blaine out. But he can see…all of Blaine. All. “Oh my god.”

Blaine sticks his head out of the shower. “Kurt? What is the matter?”

And the crack in the curtain gives Kurt an even better view of Blaine’s, er, assets. He covers his eyes and leans back against the wall that separates the shower from the toilet. “Oh god you’re beautiful.” He claps a hand over his mouth. When will he ever learn to shut his trap?

There is a moment of nothing but the sound of water pounding against porcelain and steam filling the room, and then Blaine says, nearly in a whisper, “You find me beautiful?”

Kurt rolls his head to the side until he can see Blaine’s face, the beads of water precarious in his eyelashes. He nods and Blaine blinks, dislodging a drop so that it cascades down his cheek and drips onto his chest. Kurt swallows.

“I find you beautiful, too,” Blaine says. “The most beautiful person I have ever before seen.”

Kurt watches as Blaine’s eyes flicker from Kurt’s own down to his mouth and back up again. His pink tongue pokes out to lick a drop of water from his lip. “Blai—”

“Please kiss me.”

Kurt doesn’t know if this is the best idea, but he’s leaning forward. “Are you—”

Blaine’s open mouth landing on his answers the question that he never got to finish asking. For someone so innocent, Blaine sure seems to know what he’s doing.

Wet fingers dig into Kurt’s hair as Blaine’s open mouth presses and sucks and Kurt can’t stand it, can’t wait any longer. He slides his tongue forward and licks inside of Blaine’s mouth and his whole body throbs at Blaine’s responding moan. Blaine’s hands are tugging Kurt forward and the room is getting so unbelievably hot, the air thick and hanging around them. Kurt can hear the water of the shower pounding down against the porcelain still as Blaine tries to pull him behind the curtain.

Blaine’s eyes are pleading when he detaches their mouths. He doesn’t let go of Kurt’s hair.

"Okay," Kurt gasps, and leans in for another quick, open-mouthed kiss. "Okay."

Blaine massages Kurt’s scalp as Kurt shucks off his clothes—his pants, underwear and socks all at once, and then his button-down pooling on top of them on the bath mat. Blaine makes a sound like a needy puppy once Kurt is naked, and pulls him into the shower.

They fall against the cold wall and Blaine gasps when his back touches the tiles. “Sorry,” Kurt rasps into Blaine’s mouth, then lets his lips trail over Blaine’s jaw and down behind his ear as he slips his hands around his back to act as a buffer between his skin and the cold.

“Oh, oh.” All of the little noises coming out of Blaine are driving Kurt crazy. His hips fall forward against Blaine’s and Blaine thrusts out until they’re rutting together. Blaine’s leg slides up Kurt’s side and he leans his head back just slightly, just enough that Kurt can see his blown pupils and slack mouth. He moves one hand away from Blaine’s back and grabs ahold of his lifted leg, slipping it around his waist and keeping it in place. Blaine groans and his head thumps back against the wall, his hips pushing forward more insistently.

Kurt sucks on the damp skin of Blaine’s neck, his hands rubbing rhythmically against back and thigh in time with the motion of their hips until Blaine is crying out, and Kurt soon after him.

As their breathing slows, Kurt presses gentle kisses all over Blaine anywhere that he can reach until Blaine lets out a breathless laugh. “We just did the third thing,” he says. “Perhaps we should try the others now.”

Kurt chuckles against Blaine’s neck. “A little recovery time first, maybe?” He pulls back and helps Blaine’s leg to the ground, then leans in to tenderly kiss his swollen lips. “Let’s get cleaned up.”

He loves soaping up Blaine’s hair and the joyous, almost childlike way he smiles and laughs when Kurt gets him directly under the nozzle’s spray to rinse the shampoo away. Blaine seems amused by the shower sponge, playing with the lather of body wash and insisting that he wash Kurt as well as himself. As they are rinsing off, the water starts to go cold.

"We’re running out of hot water, better hurry," Kurt warns, and Blaine’s expression turns apologetic.

"I’m so sorry!"

"Oh, no, not forever! Just for a half an hour or so until the tank refills. It’s okay."

Blaine is shivering from his cold water rinse when they step out of the tub, and Kurt wraps him in a large, soft towel, rubbing it over his skin to warm him back up. Blaine’s eyes go soft as Kurt works, and his smile is gentle, faraway.

"What is it?" Kurt asks. What they just did is only starting to seep in and Kurt feels a flash of nervousness.

"I was just thinking," Blaine says in a quiet voice. He reaches out to run his fingers slowly over Kurt’s cheek. "Perhaps I was meant to come here to you. You were my first clarity in two hundred years. I knew you were there as I walked around in a sleepless dream."

"Maybe you were." Kurt has never believed in magic, but now he isn’t quite so sure. "I was sleeping, but not dreaming," he whispers back, and Blaine leans in to kiss his mouth.

~*~*~*~

They don’t immediately try any of the others things they talked about earlier in the day, but instead curl up in Kurt’s bed under the covers. Kurt still hasn’t gotten the chance to clean up the remnants of the broken music box, and Blaine eyes it with caution as he lies with his head on Kurt’s chest. “I’m frightened to fall asleep,” he says. “What if…?”

Kurt shakes his head adamantly. “No one is taking you anywhere.” He kisses the top of Blaine’s damp curls and runs lazy circles around his bicep with his fingertips until Blaine falls asleep.

~*~*~*~

Kurt doesn’t dream. There is no mist or thick air choking him. He sleeps soundly until he begins to feel eyes on him, hot pinpoints on his face and the crooks of his elbows and under his navel. He snaps his eyes open to find Blaine above him and looking down with a smile. His fingers are carding through Kurt’s hair, and the tugging sensation is so soothing that Kurt’s eyes slip back shut several times before he truly becomes alert.

"You doin’ okay?" he asks lazily.

"If that means am I happier than I have ever been, then yes. Blissfully so."

Kurt smiles up at Blaine and takes one of his hands. “I’ll work with you on that—all of the weird, modern slang.”

"Slang? Um, that wouldn’t be very—"

"Words. Just…strange words."

Blaine barks a laugh. “I would appreciate that very much. Even words I recognize do not seem to carry the same meaning any longer.”

"You’ll get used to everything," Kurt says with a yawn. As he stretches, Blaine slides down next to him and rests his head on his shoulder. He looks shy when Kurt meets his eye.

"Kurt, I know it is customary for it to come before the…intimate act, but you said it would be possible for us to marry?"

Kurt’s eyes widen and he flinches back a little, regretting it immediately when Blaine bites his lip, shrinking away and pulling the covers up to hide his nudity. “Oh,” he says. “You do not wish to marry me. Is this something that you do with lots of men?”

"What? No. Blaine—"

"Because I would not have, if I had known that marriage was not an option. I let my feelings go to my head and—"

"Blaine, it’s fine. Don’t get upset, please. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, it’s just that these days, people don’t get married unless they’ve known each other for a long time. Or met on a reality show," he adds with a laugh. But Blaine stares at him blankly with eyes that still look lost and sad, so he waves away his comment. "I really, really, really like you, Blaine. Like, I never imagined I would ever meet someone I like as much, but we have to spend more time together. Get to know each other. Go on dates. And then…if we both want to, then we can talk about getting married.”

Blaine worries his lip between his teeth for a moment, then nods slightly. “What is a ‘date?’ I’m assuming you are not speaking of the fruit.”

"Oh, it’s when two people who like each other go out places together. Like, to see a concert, or a movie—which you will love and I will show you those later—or to eat dinner. Basically spend time alone together, getting to know each other. Two guys—men—who are dating exclusively call each other boyfriends.”

“Boyfriends. So…boyfriends date each other and are intimate, and then maybe get married if they both want to?”

"Right."

"And do you want—"

“Yes.” Kurt widens his eyes and takes Blaine’s hand again, squeezing it for emphasis.

Blaine’s sad expression finally cracks. He tilts his head to one side and runs a thumb over Kurt’s knuckles. “Well that actually sounds very nice,” he says. “I should like very much to be your boyfriend.”

"I should like very much to be your boyfriend as well," Kurt says in a formal tone that has Blaine breaking up laughing.

"You are mocking me!"

Kurt places a hand over his heart. “Never!”

And Blaine tackles him into the sheets.

~*~*~*~

"Kurt!" Blaine is calling from inside Kurt’s bedroom as he tosses the remnants of the music box into the garbage can under his sink. He’d tucked a piece of the side away as a keepsake, hidden where it will not be seen by Blaine as not to upset him.

"Kurt! Your cell-e-phone is making a strange sound again! There is a portrait of a man with your eyes in the window!"

"That’s my dad!" Kurt hollers back, dropping the dustpan on the floor. Blaine meets him halfway, holding Kurt’s phone in his hand like it’s a snake about to bite him. He jumps slightly every time it vibrates on his palm.

Kurt plucks it off Blaine’s hand and slides his finger across the screen. “Dad! Hi!”

"You sound chipper, kid. And kinda outta breath. This a bad time?" Burt chuckles when Kurt admonishes him. "What, it’s a rare thing when I got something to tease you about, Kurt. So how are you? You finished with your show?"

"No, not yet. Still working away on it with Mae. The book is great, but I’m so glad they’re letting us rework the music. It would have ruined the entire show. God, it was so horrible."

Kurt turns to find Blaine watching him, his eyes wide as he leans his head towards the phone where he can hear Burt’s voice emerging.

"So what’s got you so cheery then?" Burt asks, just as Blaine mouths, "How is this possible?”

Kurt chuckles and takes Blaine’s hand, leading him into the living room to sit on the couch. “Well, Dad,” he says, “I do have some good news. I have a boyfriend.”

Blaine sits up straight and looks at Kurt with such a loving expression that he almost regrets turning down his proposal of marriage.

"Wow, kiddo, that’s great! What’s his name?"

"Blaine…" Kurt says, and then realizes when he opens his mouth to add a surname that he doesn’t even know what it is. So the marriage thing should probably wait until he at least has that tidbit of information. He looks over at Blaine and mouths "last name?”

"Anderson," Blaine whispers, and hides his laughter in his hands.

"Blaine Anderson," Kurt repeats.

"And when do I get to meet this Blaine Anderson?"

"Well, at Christmas I suppose," Kurt says. "I’ll bring him home for Christmas."

"That serious, huh?"

"Yeah, Dad. It’s definitely serious."

And Blaine is no longer laughing, but looking so soft and sweet, sitting there in Kurt’s robe. Kurt isn’t sure how he’ll ever manage to be out of his presence again for the rest of his life. “Definitely serious,” he repeats, and Blaine curls up against him with an ear to his heart.

After Kurt ends his call with Burt, Blaine’s eyes find his. “So what is yours?”

"My what?"

"Surname?"

"Oh, it’s Hummel."

Blaine smiles. “Hummel. I like that. And what do we do—since we are both men—what do we do with our surnames when we get married?”

"We do anything we want," Kurt answers.

"Lovely," Blaine says, and stretches up to press their lips together.

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