Tan Hands and Tan Lines Sophisticated Word Challenge 2021: quixotic
Words: ~ 1350 words
Rating: Teen and up
Summary: Kurt’s new companion needs to stop flirting with investigators.
I’m belatedly going through the prompts for The Tan Hands and Tan Lines Summer Event 2021 to flesh out my Mormon!Klaine universe. This one takes place in the first week of their mission, directly after Flirting with Danger.
My Mormon!Klaine Masterpost.
Notes: ‘Süsse’ means ‘sweetie.’ If you have any questions or typo corrections, feel free to use my ask box!
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Other than their conversation with Harmonie and Dolcezza, their afternoon on campus was uneventful. Only two students had been interested in taking the religion survey, and they both turned out to be atheists. The likelihood of anyone showing up to their English group seemed slim. They’d given out a lot of flyers, but Kurt noticed almost as many in the recycling bins as they left campus.
Maybe Harmonie and Dolcezza would show up—they’d ended up touching on some important points despite the flirting.
Yes, Dolcezza continued commenting on Elder Anderson’s looks and his handsome brown eyes and asking him if he was sure he didn’t have relatives from southern Italy, and when he said the closest his ancestry brought him to Italy was Portugal, Dolcezza granted that Portuguese had an even more romantic cadence than Italian.
Even worse, Elder Anderson encouraged all this with his batting eyelashes, his aw shucks facial expressions, and his ridiculous statement that it was hard to imagine any language sounding more romantic than Italian.
But Kurt had managed to wedge in a bit about the plan of salvation during the pauses in Elder Anderson’s flirting with Dolcezza. Harmonie, apparently also sick of the flirting, hooked onto what Kurt offered and asked probing questions. But Kurt hadn’t been able to get either girl to commit to coming to the English group, and they had refused the number of the sister missionaries when Kurt offered it.
“I’ll tell you what,” Dolcezza had said. “If Elder Anderson promises to learn some Portuguese from me, I’ll learn some English from you.”
“That would be fun!” Elder Anderson grinned like a kid who had just been offered to the entire contents of a Toys "R" Us store. Why hadn’t Elder Thompson warned Kurt that his new companion was such an incorrigible flirt?
“Unfortunately, we have to focus on our German,” Kurt said. “But that’s a kind offer.”
“What's the harm in learning a little Portuguese?” Elder Anderson asked later as they made their way from campus to a nearby neighborhood to fill up the rest of the afternoon with tracting.
“Don’t play dumb, elder.”
Elder Anderson looked genuinely offended. “I'm not playing dumb. I honestly don't get it. Elder Thompson and I used to trade lessons all the time. If someone only wanted to hear our message if we'd hear about their church or their weird mystical yoga group, then we'd listen. If the only way to get Dolcezza to our English group is to study a little Portuguese, then why not? When she gets to our group, she might show an interest in the gospel.”
“You really can't see why that would be a problem?”
Elder Anderson, looking full-on bewildered, shook his head.
“Huh. That blinded by her hotness, huh?”
Elder Anderson stopped in his tracks. “Her what?”
“I may be gay, Elder Anderson, but I can still tell a pretty girl when I see one. And both of them were pretty. I mean, I thought Harmonie was prettier, but I guess I just prefer darker coloring and eyebrows that are heavy enough to make a statement—” Kurt realized as he was saying this how attractively dark and expressive Elder Anderson’s eyebrows were, furrowing like two fat caterpillars above his bewildered eyes—ugh, that really should not be attractive—and stopped pursuing that tack. “I’m just saying, ‘If you don't look once, you're not a man. If you look twice, you're not a missionary.’”
“Wow,” Elder Anderson said quietly, his eyes going wide. “I can't believe you just said that. That saying is so homophobic.”
“No, it doesn’t. I haven’t had a single issue with untoward thoughts about women since I came on my mission, and I’m still a man.”
This straight kid thought he could tell Kurt what was homophobic? Uh-uh. It didn't matter how oddly kind and accepting Kurt's new companion was, or that Kurt strongly suspected Elder Anderson truly was less homophobic than Kurt himself. Elder Anderson didn't have to deal with the day to day struggle of having feelings that he couldn't act on. The discrepancy between what Kurt was allowed to feel and what we he was allowed to do made him resent those feelings sometimes. But that wasn't Kurt's fault. It wasn't a character flaw. It didn't make Elder Anderson better than him.
"It's not homophobic when I'm saying it to you," Kurt said. "You're straight. It applies.”
“No, it doesn’t. I haven’t had a single issue with untoward thoughts about women since I came on my mission, and I’m still a man.”
Hmmm. Such things were supposed to be possible, and even promised. Kurt’s priesthood quorum leader had told him that, if he did his work and focused on God, he wouldn’t have a single gay thought on his mission, ha. But Kurt had never actually met a male missionary who claimed to experience such tranquility. “Well, if you weren't having untoward thoughts, why were you flirting with her so hard?”
“Flirting?” Elder Anderson’s eyebrows rose so high, Kurt almost expected them fly off his forehead like dainty brown birds.
Oh boy. Was Elder Anderson really that oblivious? “You didn’t catch the part where she said Portuguese is the sexiest language in the world?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“Or the part where she complimented your eyes and asked you to call her ‘Süsse’ instead of Dolcezza? Surely you know ‘Süsse’ is a pet name.”
“Yeah, but … it’s also a literal translation of ‘Dolcezza.’ She was just being polite. In case we had trouble with pronouncing her name in Italian.”
“No, Elder Anderson. She was flirting with you. She wanted you to speak Portuguese because she thinks it sounds sexy. Like she thinks you’re sexy.”
Elder Anderson wrinkled his nose. He looked almost … disgusted? “No. I’m not— That was just— Oh.” His cheeks flushed like ripe peaches. He scratched the back of his neck. He looked down at the ground. “I thought …” He traced an invisible line on the sidewalk with the toe of his shoe. “I did think they were both being a little flirty at first, but then the conversation moved to more neutral topics and I thought … I thought we were just having a friendly conversation?”
Kurt replayed the interaction in his mind. Elder Anderson had shown enthusiasm, but he was always enthusiastic, wasn't he? This was a man who got excited about rain. Who let out a pornographic moan the first time he tried a Bavarian pretzel with butter and said it was the best thing he’s ever tasted—until the next day, when he tried a Schneeball pastry and said that was the best thing. Who, after his first sacrament meeting in Ingolstadt, described virtually every single person he'd met there as his “favorite,” “the best,” “delightful,” or “such a wonderful soul” without the faintest hint of irony or flattery.
Elder Anderson hadn’t stood too close to Dolcezza, or tried to touch her, or complimented her looks or wit or hat. He’d just been … kind.
If Elder Anderson’s kindness was a form of flirtation, then he had flirted way more with Kurt than with Dolcezza. And obviously, he’d never flirted with Kurt. So—
“You were having a friendly conversation, apparently. Dolcezza would like to be more than friends.” Kurt thought about adding that if maybe Elder Anderson could rein his enthusiasm in when talking to investigators, they might not flirt with him so readily.
But that seemed like a quixotic request. Elder Anderson couldn’t stop being Elder Anderson any more than Kurt could stop being Kurt. And why should he? He was lovely, just as he was. It wouldn’t be right to hide his light under a bushel.
“That’s so … embarrassing,” Elder Anderson said. As if he might be able to escape the embarrassment, he resumed walking.
“Embarrassing? That she likes you? That must happen a lot, though.”
Elder Anderson pouted. “I don’t know. I've never been too good at reading girls. Or—young women, in this case.” He took a few more paces forward, Kurt tagging along beside him. “It still weirds me out sometimes that they think of me that way. But I guess some good could come of it. Maybe even without me learning Portuguese, she'll decide to show up to the English group, anyway.”
“I don’t think we’re supposed to recruit people with our good looks.”
“You think I have good looks?”
Kurt changed the subject. “There are a couple of inactive members in this neighborhood. The friendly kind, not the hide-behind-the-couch-when-you-knock kind. You want to try them first? Introduce you as the new missionary?”
Elder Anderson clasped his hands together. “You know I love meeting members. Tell me all about them!”
Kurt smiled. Elder Anderson had faults, no doubt, but his enthusiasm wasn’t one of them. It might just be his greatest virtue.
Tan Hands and Tan Lines SmuttySmooty Word Challenge 2021: triceps
Words: ~2900 words
Rating: Teen and Up
Summary: Kurt gets a surprise package.
I’m belatedly going through the prompts for The Tan Hands and Tan Lines Summer Event 2021 to flesh out my Mormon!Klaine universe. For the smut prompts, I am writing emotional smut, or “smoot” as I have decided to call it. This one takes after Mancrush (or Mother’s Day, Part 2) and probably(?) before Homesickness and the mission conference.
My Mormon!Klaine Masterpost.
Notes: Mormon cosmology followed by fluff and smoot. If you have any questions or typo corrections, feel free to use my ask box!
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“Wait. You're telling me that the church actually put out a statement, sometime after I started my mission, saying that we can't become like God in the afterlife?” Kurt fastened the lock around his bike and put his hand on his hip. There was no way. This was a central tenet of the gospel. It wasn't a temporal matter like the preferred width for a missionary’s necktie or whether coffee ice cream counted as a hot drink. “I don't believe you. If there was new revelation about the plan of salvation, they would have told the missionaries out in the field.”
“It's not a revelation. It’s a clarification. They just said we don't ‘get our own planet when we die.’” Blaine indicated the quotation marks by lifting his hands in the air and bending the first two fingers on each of them. But he went one above that. He also wiggled his cute little triangular eyebrows in time with his finger movements.
Kurt refused to be distracted by his companion’s charm. “But we do!” Kurt stomped his foot against the sidewalk. Then he realized he'd stomped his foot against the sidewalk like a two-year-old having a temper tantrum and was horrified. He took a deep breath. “That’s the whole point of exultation. ‘As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be.’ God creates worlds, and so will we.”
“Look, my dad was even more annoyed about that statement than you are.” Blaine removed his satchel from the back rack of his bike. “I heard him talking with my mom about church leadership having fallen into apostasy after he read that statement. But then he talked to one of the higher-ranking seventies or something and decided it was true. We don't ‘get’ a planet. If you reach godhood, you're at the point where you're creating worlds upon worlds. Maybe entire universes. And it doesn't happen right after you die. First, there's spirit prison or paradise, and then there's the resurrection and the millennium, and then if you end up in the Celestial Kingdom, you’re still learning for a long time before you create anything as big as a world. The church didn't deny any of that. I mean, they didn't explain it either, because it was on a webpage for nonmembers, and milk before meat. They just didn’t want people to think it was as cartoonish as The Book of Mormon musical made it sound.”
Kurt let out a little huff of relief. “You scared me for a minute there.”
“Sorry.” Blaine started to reach across the bikes like he was going to pat Kurt on the arm, but at the last moment, his hand veered toward Kurt’s bike seat instead and he gave it a light pat. “How did we even get into this conversation?”
Kurt blushed and looked down at his bike. He couldn't fiddle nervously with it because that's what Blaine was doing, so instead he wiggled his CTR ring around his finger. “I believe I was speculating that if Elder Clarington makes it into the Celestial Kingdom, any planets he created would be super messed up? Which I now realize was not a Christlike thing to say. Or think.”
“You were frustrated. And God will forgive you. We’re all learning.”
“You wouldn't have said something like that.” Kurt pulled his satchel over his shoulder and turned toward the apartment building.
“I might have thought it, though. But then I guess I would have realized that, if Elder Clarington gets that far, it will only be because he’s perfected. And that would be a good thing, right?”
“Okay. Now you're making me feel even worse about myself because I definitely wouldn’t have thought of that.” Kurt leaned his shoulder against the entry door and held it open for Blaine to pass.
Blaine hesitated. “Don't be hard on yourself, Kurt. None of us are perfect. And I know you can't see it, but you are definitely above average.”
Kurt swatted the air. “Get inside, Elder Anderson. I can't hold the door all day.”
It was Kurt’s turn to unlock their mailbox that afternoon. It was empty as often as not, but hope sprang eternal.
And today, that hope paid off.
Kurt pulled a large padded envelope out of the box and looked at the label. It was addressed to “Elder Hummel,” and the handwriting looked familiar, but not familiar enough that he could name who had written it. It wasn't his dad or Carol or Mercedes. It couldn't be from Rachel Berry, because certainly she would have covered the envelope with stickers of stars.
But who cared who it was from? It was for him all the same.
“I got a package!” He held it to his chest and did a little dance.
“Who from?” Blaine asked, gently prying at the envelope so he could see it too.
Kurt looked at the return address. “I don't know. I can't read the name, but it looks like somewhere in California?”
Blaine studied the envelope over Kurt’s shoulder. His eyes went wide. He grabbed the envelope and stared at it some more. “He didn't. He didn't,” he muttered through gritted teeth.
“Who didn't what?”
Blaine looked up at Kurt as if he had forgotten he was there. A whole world of emotions flitted across his face before settling on something akin to playful defiance: chin up, lips pursed, a sparkle in his eyes. “It's Cooper’s return address. This package is from my brother. And—” Blaine thrust the package behind his back “—I therefore reserve the right to thoroughly inspect it. God only knows what he's put in there.”
With that, Blaine spun on his heel and darted up the stairs.
“It's addressed to me! Opening somebody else’s package is a federal crime!”
“You sure about that? Since when were you an expert in the German legal code?” Blaine called down the stairwell. How was he already a full flight ahead of Kurt?
Kurt bolted after him. He was taller than Blaine. He could take the stairs three at a time. He was going to get that little snot spoon. (Well, Rotzlöffel—it doesn’t sound so strange in German.)
But Kurt didn't catch up with Blaine until he reached the top landing. Kurt was panting and sweaty. So was Blaine, who stood at the door, jiggling his keys into the lock. He was hugging the package to his chest with the other arm, cradling it like it was a baby he had to protect from a bear.
“Give up, Anderson. You're surrounded.”
“You know me better than that, Herr Hummel.”
Kurt made a swipe for the package just as the apartment door swung open.
“Missed me!” Blaine called back in a teasing singsong as he darted through the door and down the hall. He slammed the bedroom door shut behind him.
“It doesn't lock!” Kurt turned the knob and felt the weight of Blaine against the back of the door. He pushed. Blaine pushed back. Dang, that boy had a lot of muscle packed into his delightfully compact body. But Kurt was wilier. He jammed the toe of his shoe into the small opening he had managed to create and slid forward.
“Get your foot out of there! I don't want to break it.”
“If you don't want to break it, I guess you'll just have to let me in.” Kurt pressed his full weight against the door.
“If that's what you want—”
The door went flying open. Kurt went flying, too, right past Blaine and into the open wardrobe as Blaine flew out the bedroom door. Kurt’s face was buried between two of Blaine’s blazers, which he could identify as Blaine’s even with his eyes closed because they smelled like him, a sweet mix of raspberries and fresh air and skin and—No. Kurt would not be distracted from his goal. He steadied himself against the frame of the wardrobe and called out, “You imp! I am so gonna get you!”
And he did. He found Blaine near the loveseat, frantically trying to rip open the envelope without the aid of scissors, and tackled him right into the cushions, landing with his face buried in Blaine’s giggling stomach.
“No,” Blaine laughed, his muscles rippling under Kurt’s nose. “Not yours.”
“It’s addressed to me.” Kurt looked up. Blaine's face was pink and he was breathing hard. He held the envelope above his head with outstretched arms.
“Are you sure of that?” Blaine teased. “Can you read what it says from where you are? Maybe it's a magic envelope and the name has changed.”
“My foot,” Kurt muttered, sliding up Blaine’s body toward the envelope.
Thinking about it later, Kurt was both horrified and impressed by his own audacity. In the moment, Kurt hardly noticed there was anything intimate about it.
Not until his hands were halfway up Blaine’s triceps and his eyes parallel with Blaine’s lips, all flush from exertion and slightly parted, his breath escaping in staggered pants, the corners of his lips turned up in a mischievous smile.
It was then that Kurt suddenly remembered he was on a self-imposed sabbatical from casual touching. That he hadn't been this close to Blaine in almost two weeks.
And on top of him? Never.
Kurt knew he should feel awkward. Bad, even. But Blaine’s body was so warm, and it was soft in all the right places and firm where the muscles were at work. And Blaine didn't seem to mind that Kurt was wriggling around on top of him like the world's most inexperienced member of a high school wrestling team.
It felt right. Like Kurt belonged here, smashed up against another guy, breathing the same few cubic inches of air.
Life sparked inside Kurt’s pants.
Dang it. All good things must come to an end.
Kurt rolled off of Blaine and dove for the envelope. He was prepared for another mighty struggle. But the envelope slipped right out of Blaine’s hands.
“I won!” Kurt cackled. He grabbed a pair of scissors from the bookshelf and began snipping through the envelope’s closure.
But Blaine had stopped laughing.
“Don't.”
If Blaine had shouted it, Kurt wouldn’t have stopped.
But Blaine did the opposite. He spoke it in a hoarse whisper—so quiet, so plaintive, it sent a chill down Kurt’s spine.
Kurt looked over his shoulder at Blaine and saw something akin to abject terror written across his companion’s face.
“Hey,” Kurt said gently, like he was talking to Spinchen. He set the package and scissors on top of the shelf. “What’s wrong?”
Blaine shook his head, like he was trying to break some spell that had been cast over him. “I'm sorry. I'm probably just being paranoid. It's just, my brother—he can be a little … inappropriate. He doesn't mean any harm by it, but—”
“You think he's put some weird anti-gay stuff in here? Or porn?”
“Oh gosh, no. Nothing like that. Just … I'd feel better if …”
Kurt picked the package and scissors off the shelf and walked them over to Blaine. “It’s okay. You know your brother better than I do. All I know him as is the deliverer of Peeps.” He paused. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed you were just being difficult.”
“Oh. Well, I sort of am being difficult. But … for reasons.”
Kurt left the package in Blaine's hands and walked over to the entryway to corral the satchels and bike helmets they'd thrown to the floor during their impromptu battle.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Blaine grumbled from the love seat. And then he laughed—a quick, two syllable laugh that melted into a relieved sigh.
Kurt turned around. “What is it?”
Blaine held the open package out toward Kurt. “See for yourself.”
“You sure?”
Blaine nodded. “You’ll find out sooner or later.”
“Well, that was cryptic.” Kurt took the package and sat down on the love seat next to Blaine. He peeked inside and laughed. “Oh my gosh. It's more Peeps!” There were half a dozen of them in single-serving wrappers, each as flat as a pancake. “Did we do that to them?”
“I think it's fair to blame poor packaging and international shipping.”
In addition to the Peeps, Kurt found an envelope inside with writing on the back:
Dear Elder Hummel,
Blainey says you loved the Easter Peeps so much that he wishes he could give you one every day. Alas, this was all that was left at the local CVS. To make up for it, please enjoy the enclosed headshot. It will be worth a lot of money soon and then you can sell it for all the Peeps you want. –Cooper Anderson
P.S. Consider the Peeps a gift from Blainey.
P.P.S. Call him Blainey. He loves it.
“Is that true?” Kurt said, pointing to the nickname.
“Absolutely not. It drives me crazy.”
“And what's this about a headshot? Is he an actor?”
“Just open it.” Blaine sounded less than enthused.
“Are you sure?”
Blaine nodded. “Like I said, you'll find out sooner or later. I might as well rip off the Band-Aid now.” Kurt usually thought of Blaine as an open book, but apparently he had secrets, too.
“Oh my gosh!” Kurt said when he opened the envelope and the headshot signed in a big, loopy Cooper Anderson slid out. He knew that face. He had crushed out on that face. He had torn that guy’s picture out of Carole’s copy of Family Circle and taped it to the inside of his closet door, right next to Taylor Lautner. “That's the Albadent guy! Your brother's the Albadent guy! Make your teeth so white with Albadent! Make your teeth so bright your landlord won't care if you pay the rent!”Kurt looked expectantly at Blaine, waiting for him to join in the jingle, but Blaine didn't. His lips were mashed together in a sort of defeated grimace. Kurt nudged him with his elbow. “What? You don't like the jingle?”
“Kurt.” Blaine said his name like it was a complete sentence. “The lyrics are atrocious.”
“I know. But the tune! And your brother sings it so well. Aren’t you proud of him?”
“Yes, but …” Blaine ran his hand over his hair in frustration. “I guess I was just enjoying not living in his shadow. I mean, he's so talented and tall and gorgeous, and he has the most ridiculously white teeth, and even after he left home, everyone from the ward was constantly asking about him when they weren't telling me how great my dad was, because he's just so incredibly magnetic and charming and … hot, and I'm …” Blaine pointed at himself as if he was nothing to write home about. An awkward, ugly duckling.
Kurt set a careful hand on the back of Blaine’s shoulder. “You think I'm going to dump you as my best friend because your brother is the Albadent guy?”
“When you put it that way, it sounds kind of stupid.”
“It’s not stupid. It’s just the way you feel. But Blaine—”
Blaine looked straight into Kurt’s eyes when he said his name. And suddenly, Kurt couldn’t say anything more.
Because there was something about Blaine’s expression. It was sad and conflicted, but also hopeful and so needful of love; and his eyes were full of endless subtle shades of amber and brown shining brightly like when the sun would get caught in a glass of Carol's iced tea before she converted; and his eyelashes—how on earth did Blaine think his brother could compete with those eyelashes?
The words caught in Kurt’s throat and wouldn’t budge.
God, I’m in love with him, aren’t I?
That shouldn't have come as a surprise. It shouldn't have been something Kurt needed to even ask Heavenly Father about.
But there it was.
This wasn't infatuation or libido or misdirected affection. It wasn't Kurt’s loneliness conjuring up illusions of the perfect boy. Kurt wasn't confused. He wasn't touch-starved. He wasn't creating some idealized fantasy that would pop when Blaine’s faults were revealed.
Kurt was in love.
It was real and unconditional.
Kurt had fallen for the Elder Anderson who was the picture of confidence, a true Prince Charming—but he also loved this Blaine who was weirdly insecure.
He loved Elder Anderson, the perfect Mormon missionary—and he loved Blaine, who said questionable things about church teachings.
He loved Blaine when he was supportive and understanding, and he loved Blaine when he refused to back down from a confrontation.
He loved Blaine for how impossibly compassionate he could be. But he also loved Blaine when he was inexplicably, frustratingly, annoyingly rude to Chandler, and he loved Blaine when he was difficult, and he loved Blaine when he was an obstinate pain in the butt.
I love you, Blaine. I love you.
But Kurt hadn’t said those words in almost two weeks. They were the last thing he was capable of saying right now.
He prayed for the strength to say the next best thing.
“You're my best friend, Blaine. You may be related to the Albadent guy, but to me, you will never be ‘just the little brother of the Albadent guy.’ Okay?”
“I know. I'm being ridiculous. I guess … I just really like this little bubble we live in. I don't want the rest of the world encroaching on it.”
“Me neither.” Kurt felt like he should probably lean in to give Blaine a hug, but he couldn't do it—because if he did, he didn't think he would ever let go. He rubbed Blaine’s shoulder like it was one of the brass lions in front of Munich’s Alte Residenz. “Me neither.”
Tan Hands and Tan Lines Snarky’s Word Challenge 2021: jerk
Words: ~1900
Rating: Teen and Up
Summary: Elder Nixon tells Blaine what’s going on with Elder Clarington. (And Blaine pines for Kurt.)
I’m belatedly going through the prompts for The Tan Hands and Tan Lines Summer Event 2021 to flesh out my Mormon!Klaine universe. This vignette takes place in the middle of By Common Consent (which was Kurt POV; this is Blaine POV).
My Mormon!Klaine Masterpost.
Notes: I’m changing my challenge tag for the Tan Hands and Tan Lines prompts to “thatl” because “tan lines” is currently blocked on iOS, which has led to blocking of “tan hands and tan lines” for some readers. Fun times!
Speaking of tags, I am creating a new 'mormon!klaine spoilers' tag so I can probably answer anonymous asks that touch on plot points appearing below the fold in Tumblr posts. If you're reading this, that's probably not relevant to you, but just in case it is… you can block it.
If you have any questions or typo corrections, feel free to use my ask box!
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“Is Elder Clarington okay?” Blaine leaned across the table toward Elder Nixon and kept his voice low to prevent the other missionaries from overhearing. The temporary companionship had lucked out; they’d found a two-seater in the corner by the window, and were completely surrounded by normal people—a family of five, a group of rowdy teenagers, and two college women on a study break. But Blaine still had to be careful. Missionaries had heightened hearing for gossip.
“Has Elder Clarington ever been okay?” Elder Nixon picked the pepperoni off his pizza slice and piled it on the side of the plate. “Also, whose brilliant idea was it to go to Pizza Hut for dinner? We're in southern Germany. We have access to some of the best Italian food outside of Italy. But, no. Pizza Hut.”
“Someone who was homesick, I guess. My trainer always complained about the pizza at the Italian restaurants around here. Said it didn't have enough cheese.”
“How long had he been out?” Elder Nixon asked, taking a tepid bite of his slice.
“A year and a half,” Blaine said.
Elder Nixon sighed. “A year and a half and still close-minded about food. That's rough.”
Blaine pierced his fork into the tip of his slice and cut away a neat triangle. He chewed slowly, waiting for Elder Nixon to answer his original question. No answer came.
Blaine set down his fork. “I get if you don't want to talk about Elder Clarington. You hardly know me. It's just … he was a little weird when I did splits with him, too. I thought he was just a jerk—which I know is wrong to think about another person, and I regret it—but now I'm wondering if he's having some sort of …” Blaine lowered his voice. “Health issue?”
“Oh!” said Elder Nixon, surprised. “I wasn’t trying to avoid it. I'm just so relieved to be talking to a person who actually listens to my opinion that I'm just … trying to get out as many opinions as possible before I go back to working with Elder Clarington, I guess.” He took another bite of pizza and chewed thoughtfully. “And I'm not worried you're gonna gossip or anything. Elder Hummel spoke very highly of you when we worked together, and it takes a lot for Elder Hummel to speak highly of someone, so—”
“He did?” The idea that Kurt actually thought about him when he wasn't around—and not only that, but thought nice things and then said them—gave Blaine a little rush of pleasure not unlike the one he’d get from biting into a good donut.
“Yeah. He said every missionary should get a chance to work with you. That you were kind and trustworthy and the very model of Christlike love.”
“Oh, wow, well, I don’t know about that …” Blaine blushed and resumed dissecting his pizza. He could barely contain the squeal of joy he wanted to let out. Not that Blaine thought of himself as Christlike, but if he had succeeded in communicating even one iota of that kind of love to Kurt, if Kurt had actually felt it and then told other people about it—that was momentous enough to write home about.
On the other hand … maybe not. Cooper would never let Blaine hear the end of it, would he? He would list it as more evidence that Blaine was “in love.” What did “in love” mean, anyway? That couple on the train had not given him a good answer. They just told him their meet-cute-on-the-ski-slopes story, but said little about the roller coaster ride of their emotions or what it physically felt like to be in love. Like, people talked about butterflies in the stomach, but did that mean you felt just a little queasy, or like, on the verge of throwing up? If you only had to resist the urge to hold the person’s hand two or three times a day, was that love, or was it just because you missed having cats around that you could pet all the time? If you were in love, could you really manage to genuinely enjoy conversation with a near stranger over dinner at Pizza Hut, while only occasionally thinking that you’d rather be with your beloved?
The thing was, Cooper probably didn't even care what Blaine’s feelings were. He was probably just tormenting Blaine because he thought that learning to label your feelings with an essential step in becoming a better actor—how can you pretend to be in love if you can't identify that feeling in yourself, or some such rot. Blaine had done great at pretending he was in love when he played Tony in West Side Storyand Danny in Grease. He had convinced everyone, including his leading ladies, which had been a little awkward.
“I’m sure Elder Hummel was telling the truth about you. He’s not the kind of guy to lie,” said Elder Nixon. He took another bite of his pizza and didn't speak again until he swallowed. “But Elder Clarington ... I'm not so sure about Elder Clarington. I think he's been lying to me.”
“Oh? About what?” Blaine put down his knife and fork to indicate that Elder Nixon had his full attention. “Only if you want to tell me, of course.”
Elder Nixon leaned across the table toward Blaine. “He’s been taking these little white pills. He told me they were antacid, and I thought that explained why he was taking them every few hours, but then I wasn’t sure because aren’t the antacids you take every few hours big like Tums? And the little antacids are stronger, so you can only take once or twice a day? But I'm not an expert, so… I gave him the benefit of the doubt. And the bottle he keeps them in is an antacid bottle. But then … A couple weeks ago, it was his turn to take out the trash, but of course he hadn't, said he was too busy with all his zone leader things and scripture study to take out five minutes of his evening to do it. And I didn't want to stir up contention, so I went around the apartment emptying the trash, and when I tipped over the bathroom wastebasket, out came this bottle with the label all markered up. Only he did a really bad job of marking out the label because it was obvious to me that it said ‘Koffein’ on it.”
Blaine didn’t mean to gasp, but he did. “Caffeine!?” And then, once he was over the initial shock, “Plus, those bottles should really go in the recycling. So what did you do?”
“Well, I knew I couldn't talk to Elder Clarington about it, because he's the kind of guy for whom hierarchy is everything. If a priesthood holder is even half a rung higher than you on the ladder, you don't question him. And since he's my senior companion, well …”
“He wouldn't respond kindly to you bringing it up.”
“Exactly. So then I thought, maybe I should go talk to President Steele. Because it's a problem, obviously. I mean, caffeine isn't technically against the Word of Wisdom, but my family doesn't even drink Coke. And popping it in pills seems a little … extreme. And probably unhealthy? I mean, I have noticed that more of those things he takes, the harder he is to deal with. And he was taking like, one every hour until the conference started this afternoon.”
“It all makes sense now.”
“Right? So I've been a little worried about him, but also … has he told you about his dad? His family is one of those ‘come back with honor or come back in a coffin’ kind of families when it comes to missions. So I was worried. What if President Steele decided it was a violation of the Word of Wisdom and not just a health issue? Would he send Elder Clarington home? As much as I'd like to be assigned a new companion, I just couldn't do that to him.”
“Elder Nixon, I think you did the right thing. I get the impression that Elder Clarington’s dad is even more intense than Elder Clarington. I mean, from what I've gathered, he’s pretty much promised to disown any son that doesn't complete a successful mission. And … couldn't he get kicked out of BYU, too?”
“I hadn’t even thought of that. It really would be a disaster for him, wouldn't it?”
Blaine nodded solemnly. “I know not everyone agrees, but I think it's usually best to err on the side of compassion. None of us have enough knowledge about another person’s situation to judge them, except for bishops. That's God's job.”
“Elder Clarington would definitely not agree with that.” Elder Nixon laughed bitterly. He took one last bite from his slice and set the crust down on the plate. He stared at sadly, it as if its toppingless state was meant as a personal offense. “There’s something else, too. But I don't know if I should say it.”
Elder Nixon’s expression was a little like how Kurt had looked those many weeks ago right before he had first come out to Blaine. Nervous and unsure. Slightly tormented.
Huh. How many people in the Germany Central-South Mission were gay?
“It’s up to you, Elder Nixon,” Blaine said. “But I’m hear to listen, if that’s what you need.”
“Let me think about it,” Elder Nixon said. “We should eat more, anyway.”
Blaine looked down at his plate. He'd only finished half a slice, and he had been famished when they had arrived at the restaurant. He was, he realized, still very hungry. He hadn’t even noticed, though, while Elder Nixon had been talking about his worries. It was easy to ignore the demands of the body when someone else needed you.
It wasn’t until later, when they were in their assigned room for the night, that Elder Nixon raised the subject again. “It wasn’t only caffeine pills, Elder Anderson.”
Elder Nixon gave up on unpacking his bag and flopped down on his bed with a miserable expression.
Blaine sat down on the little end table at the end of Elder Nixon’s bed. “What do you mean?”
“Please don’t judge me.”
“I have no intention of doing that.”
Elder Nixon sighed. “He’s been doing something that’s probably worse.”
Blaine tried to think of something worse than violating the Word of Wisdom. He knew what Kurt would think. “You mean… masturbating?”
“Oh, gosh, no! I mean, I have no idea, but please don’t put that image in my head. I meant … coffee. He’s been … He’s been eating coffee beans, too. Those chocolate-covered ones.”
“Oh,” Blaine said. That was bad. Really bad. But … He momentarily remembered that ice cream outing with Jeremiah years ago and the justification that the older, almost-a-missionary priesthood holder had even when ordering a mocha milkshake. At the time, Blaine had not been at all convinced, and instead had taken it as a deep, personal betrayal. But with distance, it was easier to give Jeremiah the benefit of the doubt. “Well, I have known people to say stuff like that doesn’t count because they’re not technically hot drinks.”
The relief on Elder Nixon’s face was almost palpable. “I'm so glad you said that! Because …” Elder Nixon looked down at his feet. “I ate some, too.”
