Chapter Text
I cut myself shaving , Kurt thinks over and over as he heads back to his apartment.
Out into the street, boarding the bus, seat at the back, pulling the cord when his stop comes around.
The bleeding has just about stopped, but his handkerchief is ruined. There will be no getting these stains out completely.
*
The man in the pinstripes comes at him like a freight train. There isn’t anywhere to go, with the wall already at his back. He manages to get a hand in between them, but it gets crushed by the heavy bulk of the guy's chest and bent at an angle that leaves it trapped and useless.
Even if he hasn't been caught so thoroughly by the one guy, there are still two others, one to pin Kurt's second arm tight to the wall, the other to guard the door against any kind of help from the bar.
And then there is the blade. Right up against his jugular. Struggling to break free would mean slitting his own throat against its sharp edge.
The man stares at Kurt, quite calmly, drawing out the moment, allowing the panic to build.
"Didn't you get our letters?" he says. His breath is hot on Kurt's face. "I thought they made things pretty clear."
"We'll pay you every penny."
Kurt’s proud the words come out strong, that he manages to look the guy right in the eye as he says them.
"Oh yeah? You have it now?"
"We'll get it soon."
"Not soon enough."
A nod to the guy holding Kurt's arm and then hands are thrust into his pockets, pulling out the night's tips.
"Twenty bucks."
"It's a start."
There comes a shock of pain from the knife to his throat and then Kurt is on his knees, on the carpet he has knelt on so many times before, hands pressing frantically to the blood-slick skin of his neck.
By the time he realises the cut is just a warning, nowhere near deep enough to be fatal, the men are already halfway to the door.
Pinstripes pauses to look back at him.
"That's the last strike, kid. Next time it'll be ear to ear."
*
I cut myself shaving.
There is no point telling anyone right away. No need to scare Blaine off and make Quinn panic. Kurt just needs to hold it together long enough for him to get Santana on her own, so that they can work out what to do. Make a plan. They could maybe get out of the country for a while. Head down to Mexico - at the very least out of the state.
Perhaps it's time to start selling organs. They have six kidneys between them. Plenty to work with.
Kurt's legs feel unsteady climbing the stairs in his building.
"I cut myself shaving," he murmurs out loud, as he is putting the key in the lock.
Inside the apartment, things don't feel right. The lamp on the little table by the door is switched on, but it is tipped over on its side.
A new kind of fear settles in Kurt's stomach as he spots the bow tie lying on the floor in the lamplight. It is a fear that leaves him rooted to the spot just inside the door.
"Blaine?" he calls out.
There's movement in the kitchen and then Blaine puts his head around the doorframe. He is in his undershirt and holding what looks like a bag of frozen corn, but seems completely unharmed.
"Hi," he says.
At the sound of his voice, Kurt can move again. He's desperate to get his hands on Blaine, to touch his arms, his chest, his shoulders, and make sure that he really is all in one piece.
"I'm okay," Blaine says, taking Kurt's hands in his.
"What's happened?"
"I don't want you to panic, okay? It looks worse than it is."
Blaine leads him into the kitchen, where Quinn is sitting on the counter, her stockinged feet dangling. Her curls slump to one side, half-covering the bruising and swelling around her eye. Blaine's shirt is balled up in her hand. She's holding it against a nasty gash on her forehead.
When she sees Kurt, her expression crumples. Blaine is beside her instantly at that, taking her hand in his as she fights to get herself under control again.
"Quinn," Kurt says, taking a faltering step towards her.
"Don't give me the pity stare, Hummel. I know I look awful." Quinn's voice is rough with tears. She lifts one hand and tries to push a little life into her drooping hairdo, wincing as Blaine touches the frozen corn to her black eye.
Kurt can't stop staring at a smear of blood streaked across her perfect cheekbone. "Who did this?" he asks.
"I don't know. Couple of guys. A couple of assholes."
For the second time since he got back to the apartment, Kurt feels a rush of fear strong enough to make him dizzy.
"Did they come here too?"
"What do you mean 'too'?" Blaine is looking at Kurt sharply, but he gets distracted when Quinn clutches suddenly at his wrist.
"Will you help me to the couch?"
Together, they support her through the sitting room, and down onto the couch, where she fumbles with her cigarettes until Blaine takes over and lights one for her.
"They came to the Bianca Lounge," Quinn says. "Waited outside and caught up with me as I was leaving. I barely made it home. Lucky your sweetie was here to pick up the pieces."
Her hands tremble as she smokes her cigarette. Kurt pours her two fingers of gin and hands it over, to calm her nerves.
"Oh, Quinn. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry this happened."
"Don't be. You didn't do it." She looks up at him. Her unharmed eye is bright and the make-up around it only slightly smudged. Kurt stands up, only partly to avoid the knowing way that Blaine is staring at him.
"Where's Santana?"
At the mention of her name, Santana steps forwards and stands there in front of Kurt. She has been smoking quietly in the shadows by the window, unnoticed.
"She's right here, baby." She pops her hip carelessly. Smoke curls from the cigarette between her fingers. "I don't know what the big fuss is about. So Quinny got knocked about a little. So what? It's a hazard of the job."
The relief Kurt feels at seeing her unharmed quickly dissipates. "How can you say that?"
"Oh please, Hummel. It's happened to all of us," Santana says. "It was her turn. She got off lightly."
"Stop that. Jesus Christ."
"It's true. Don't think I've not seen you come home black and blue before. Hell, I've literally picked you up off the sidewalk when you couldn't stand. Forgotten that big night, doll-face?"
On the night Santana is talking about, Kurt had only been working at the Apollo for a week. He was still bitter and filled with anger about losing his job and his apartment, all because of a stupid kiss in an elevator.
There was a giant lump of a man, like a ham hock on legs. Handsy all night. He followed Kurt out at closing time and tried to kiss him.
Too green to know better, Kurt shoved him away with a surge of adrenaline strength. That was a mistake. Like tripping some kind of switch.
The back of Kurt's head hit the brick wall of the alley so hard that for a moment he couldn't see. And then there were fists and knees and nothing he could do to stop any of it.
Santana found him later and lifted him up out of the blood and gravel. She took him home to this apartment and he never left.
His hospital bills from that night still make up a chunk of their current debt.
Kurt blinks the memories away.
"That's not what this is about, Santana,” he snaps. “It's the money. They're after us for the fucking money."
A silence falls. Kurt can feel Blaine's gaze on him. “They came to the Apollo." He lays a hand over the cut on his throat. "They came for me too."
Santana is flicking at the end of her cigarette, lips pursed. It's obvious that he hasn't said anything she doesn’t already know.
With a sigh, he turns to Quinn, who is holding the bag of corn against her face.
"I'm going to make you some tea. Oh, honey. And get you some raw meat to put on that hideous eye."
Really, Kurt just needs to get out of the room.
It isn't a surprise that Blaine follows him into the kitchen, but Kurt pretends not to notice. He busies himself with boiling the water and searching Quinn's favourite mug out of the cupboard, only stopping when he feels Blaine's fingers at his neck, gently pulling down the shirt collar.
"What happened here?" Blaine asks quietly. “I’m guessing not a shaving cut.”
Kurt stands there, mug dangling from one hand. His chest hurts. He feels like he might start to cry.
"I don't know how we're going to get out of this," he hears himself say.
Immediately, Blaine's arms are around him. “Tell me what you need.”
Kurt laughs, the sound strained, bordering on hysterical.
“We need an insane amount of money. By about yesterday. To pay off some fucking gangsters, who have been chasing us for months and are apparently now at the end of their tethers.”
Blaine pulls back. “You need money,” he says, like he’s not sure if he’s misunderstood.
“Five thousand dollars.”
Just saying the figure out loud makes Kurt feel hot all over. His fingertips feel numb, his throat tight.
But Blaine just nods. “Okay.”
“Okay, what? We don’t have that kind of money. I know it might be small fry to somebody like you, but to us-”
“No, but I can give it to you, though.”
For a second Kurt is speechless. Then he shakes his head. “We're not going to take your money."
"It would be a loan. You can pay it back. Or consider it payment for services rendered."
Horrified, Kurt pulls away.
"I mean consultancy!" Blaine rushes to explain. "Advertising. Your ideas helped us to land a huge account. They’ve become national ad campaigns. Those ideas are the reason why I got my last pay hike in the first place.”
Kurt stares at him. Slowly, he can feel the fear start to drain away as he processes this. The possibility of a solution to the problem that has stalked them for months. Could the answer really be as simple as Blaine signing over a check?
“Let me help you.” Blaine reaches for him again. “It's not my money, Kurt. It's ours. I feel like everything I've ever had should be ours."
White sheets and sunlight. Blaine's smile, for the very first time, lighting the dark of the Apollo.
"Careful," Kurt says. "That sounds almost like a proposal."
Blaine lowers his eyes, dark lashes fluttering. "Maybe it will be, one day."
"Don't be absurd."
"It could happen." Blaine's voice is suddenly strong enough for the boardroom. "If we say we're married, then we're married. Why should other people get to decide which love counts and which doesn't?"
"Okay, squire. You should put that on a poster."
"What an excellent idea."
Blaine's hands tighten around Kurt's waist and then they are kissing. And it is all Kurt can do to cling onto the mug in his hand, and not let it shatter all over the kitchen tiles.
*
Back in the living room, they have a serious conversation, all huddled round a coffee table covered in gin glasses and cigarette butts.
"We'll pay back every penny," Santana says, firmly. "If you won't let us pay it back then we won't take it in the first place."
"With interest," Quinn adds.
Blaine shakes his head. "No interest. Take as long as you like to repay it. I'm not going to send goons round to break your legs if I have to wait a little while."
Santana grinds out the last of her smoke against the surface of the table. She points a long-nailed finger at Kurt.
"Listen up, blue eyes. Listen to Auntie 'Tana, now. You had better not screw this baby over. We need to keep him sweet like this. If you fuck around on him, then you answer to me. Get it?"
Quinn holds up both her hands before Kurt can even answer that with the disdain that it deserves.
"Hang on a second here. Are we seriously debt free?"
There is a pause and then they are all hugging and laughing and knocking back the contents of the nearest glasses.
"I can really sing again," Santana says. "Somewhere with no happy endings. And chase all the ladies."
Quinn grasps her hand in excitement. "I'm going to go to school. Travel the world. I'm not going to have to marry some bozo from the club." She turns and looks at Blaine, amazed. "Wow. Money really is power, huh? Thank you."
Santana has the bottle of gin and is topping up all of their glasses.
"What about you, Hummel? What are you going to do?"
Smiling ear to ear, Kurt grabs Blaine by the neck of his shirt and really plants one on him, delighting in the laughter and wolf whistles.
*
Hours later, drunk and buzzed from dancing to songs on the radio, Santana and Quinn disappear down the hall to make more poor decisions between the sheets.
Once the sound of the girls' laughter has faded away, Kurt lays Blaine out on his bed and kisses his way down from the evening stubble on Blaine's jaw to the strong bone of his hip.
"I want to make you feel really good tonight," Kurt whispers, as he massages Blaine's inner thighs. "Will you let me try something?"
Blaine reaches for him, pulls him up for a kiss. It is slower than usual, more gentle, not frantic, like it usually is at the start. Something in Kurt's chest goes tight at the feel of it, Blaine underneath him, kissing him like that.
"Yeah?" Kurt says, because he has to make sure. They've come close to this, but never all the way there.
Blaine plants little kisses at the sides of Kurt's mouth. "Yes," he says. "I want it too."
Kurt has been waiting to do this for a long time, but now that the moment is here, he finds it easy to go slow.
Blaine's hips push and roll into the touches of Kurt's tongue and then his fingers. The little noises that he makes lead the way as Kurt strokes inside of him and feels the rings of muscle gradually loosen until they hit that grasping rhythm where Blaine is squirming restless on the sheets, panting for more.
"Come on, babe, I'm ready. Please, please." He drags his toes against Kurt's thigh, urging him forward.
The eagerness is dizzying. Kurt has himself in hand, leaking and hard. He slips his fingers free and moves up to kiss Blaine again, dirty this time, their tongues sliding together.
"Are you okay? Are your sure?"
Blaine clutches at him. "So sure."
He bends easily as Kurt begins to push in, exhaling like he has practised this, his body bearing down in just the right way. The thought of Blaine making himself ready for this, training alone and in secret makes Kurt's dick throb. He can feel himself growing stiffer even as he is sliding inside and has to slow the push so that he can just breathe for a moment and make himself last.
It is tough though, this first part, no matter how well prepared you are, no matter how much practice you have had. Blaine is twitching beneath him and making tiny, breathy whines.
"It's okay," Kurt murmurs, leaning forwards to brush trembling lips against Blaine's. "We're okay."
"Move," Blaine gasps. "Fuck me."
That swear coming out of Blaine's preppy little mouth is enough to make Kurt sink all the way inside of him in one long thrust that makes both of them moan.
After that, they hit their stride easy, rocking together until they are flushed and sweaty and all folded up as close as they can get.
Blaine comes without warning, his body spasming around Kurt's cock, his strong fingers digging hard into the muscles of Kurt's back. He's whining and swearing and biting at Kurt's wrist in a way that's so filthy that Kurt can't hold it together anymore.
He comes hard himself, collapsing forwards while he is still pulsing, nothing but a useless heap in the cradle of Blaine's arms and legs, which soften around him into exhausted caresses.
They sleep close together that night and wake in the morning to bright sunlight pouring across Kurt's white sheets.
*
Blaine showers first, and then stands in front of the mirror in Kurt’s bedroom, buttoning a clean shirt on autopilot, as he thinks about Rachel.
He knows he has to end it with her. The thought makes him sick to his stomach, but steely with resolution. Things between them are all wrong – will always be wrong. Last night only confirmed that.
So, there won’t be kids and a house in the suburbs and barbeques at the weekends with all their identical friends. There won’t be smiling holiday cards and pot luck dinners at church and cheering on the sidelines at little league games.
It’s the life Blaine’s always thought he was working towards. But it’s a life meant for someone else. Where Blaine is heading is entirely different.
Though he has no idea yet what that place might look like.
*
"Got your money's worth?" Santana asks when Blaine finally works up the nerve to show his face outside of Kurt's bedroom. "Sure sounded like you did."
She is sitting by the window with a cup of coffee. Her hair is unstyled, hanging loose over her shoulders, which are covered in what looks like a man's shirt. The shirt is unbuttoned almost to her navel. Blaine averts his eyes from the lacy brassiere that she is wearing underneath.
"No," he says, hesitating in the middle of the living room and wondering if he has the option to just slink past without saying a word or looking her in the face. "I mean, it wasn't like that. We-"
Santana cuts him off with a wave of her hand.
"Oh Jesus. Don't make that face. You remind me of my ex when your eyes go all big. I know it's not like that with you guys."
"So why did you say it?"
"Just testing the waters, honey-pie. I always like to get the measure of someone. You understand?"
"I suppose so."
Santana stretches in a way that most men would probably find seductive, getting to her feet. Blaine just finds it mildly threatening, especially when she trails her fingertips across his stomach as she passes him.
"I like you, okay? Just don't tell anyone I said so."
"I like you too."
Santana pauses in the mouth of the hallway and tilts her head to one side, looking at Blaine thoughtfully.
"You know, he's different since he met you. Like he's come back to life again, or something."
At first Blaine isn't sure how to respond to that. Then he goes with his gut and says, "Thank you," because it feels like she has just paid him a very big compliment.
Santana shrugs. The loose shirt slips off one of her shoulders.
"You're welcome," she says, with a smile.
Kurt appears in the hallway behind her, eyeing her with suspicion as they pass one another.
“Keep your eyes to yourself, Hummel,” she tells him, flicking her hair behind her as she goes.
Kurt just shakes his head, looking at Blaine.
“You ready?”
*
They walk outside together, back into the world. Overnight it has rained and the air still smells clean. The stink of the city hasn’t had a chance to work its way in yet.
They pass an alley, startling a fox that is pawing between the trash cans. It freezes in place, staring at them with amber eyes, before leaving in a hurry, leaping a stray garbage bag and disappearing into the shadows.
As they walk, Blaine aches to hold Kurt’s hand, but of course does not even try to reach for it.
He’s struck by the fact that, to a passerby, they wouldn’t look at all out of the ordinary: just a couple of male colleagues on their way to the office. Nobody would guess that the night before, Blaine had been begging and clutching at bedsheets as Kurt sank slowly inside of him.
The first stop is the bank, to take care of business. It’s a huge building, full of glossy marble and deco light fixtures, where the floor is so polished that it reflects your every step back up at you.
Blaine waits at the desk for the teller to cut him a check, while Kurt sits unobtrusively in a chair, keeping his eyes on a newspaper.
It’s only once they have walked two blocks away and slid into their seats in a diner that Blaine slides the check across the table.
Kurt picks it up and stares at it, his gaze lingering over the numbers.
“Thank you,” he says, looking up.
As their eyes meet, Blaine feels a rush of certainty. This is what his future looks like.
Kurt folds the check safely away, and then looks towards the bustle of the kitchen. His eyes move, tracking the path of a busboy, hefting a tray stacked with dirty breakfast plates, pausing over a lovestruck couple, giggling their way into a booth in the corner.
Blaine is reminded once more of the moment they first saw one another. Kurt a lonely figure, composed and untouchable, staring into the distance of a world Blaine isn’t a part of. He was beautiful then and is beautiful now, and Blaine is struck suddenly by the fear that the check in Kurt’s pocket might make him feel tethered to Blaine in a way he has never wanted to be.
“So,” Blaine says, reaching for the fresh cup of coffee the server has poured him, picking up the cream with his other hand. “You never really answered Santana’s question last night.”
Kurt tears his gaze away from the couple in the booth. “What was that?”
“What next?” Blaine stirs in his cream. Tries to be patient and not to read into the fact that Kurt’s attention once more seems to be wandering across the diner, far and away from Blaine. His fingers twitch against the tabletop.
But then Kurt licks his lips and looks at Blaine with a smile.
“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do first. I’m going to march right into the Apollo tonight and tell Sue where to stick it.”
Blaine smiles back at him, unable to make it fully genuine. He shake a packet of sugar, trying to hide his nerves. “And then what?”
“I don’t know,” Kurt says. “To be honest, I’m tired of this whole city,” He chews at his bottom lip and then smirks at Blaine. “Want to run away with me?”
“Run away where?”
“I hear California’s nice. Word on the street is that San Francisco is becoming quite the place to be these days.”
“San Francisco,” Blaine says speculatively, trying to think what he knows about the place and coming up with not much. “Lots of hills, right?”
“I don’t care where we are, though.” Kurt stretches out his leg, out of sight, pressing his ankle into Blaine’s beneath the table. “As long as we can stay together.”
Blaine wants to lean into that touch, lean into the feeling it brings with it, but he can’t help himself.
“You don’t have to, you know,” he says. “Just because of the money. Please, don’t feel like you do. It doesn’t matter what happens with us. That money’s still yours.”
As the server appears with plates laden with food, Kurt slumps back in his seat, the touch of his ankle falling away. He can’t say anything immediately, too busy thanking the server and nodding to her questions about the eggs and the coffee.
Once she’s gone, he picks up his fork and starts digging aggressively into his food.
“You’re an idiot,” Kurt says, pushing eggs around without putting any into his mouth. “How have you got this far in life being such an idiot?”
“I just want to make sure.”
Finally, Kurt loads his fork with eggs. “Don’t ever ask me something like that again. Ok?”
Blaine finds himself just staring in relief until Kurts looks up at him again and says, “For God’s sake, Blaine, eat your bacon.”
*
The thought of running away with Kurt is a little glowing bead of hope at the back of Blaine’s mind.
But there is a lot in between that hope and making it a reality.
Kurt might be able to quit his jobs practically on the spot, but things aren’t quite that straightforward for Blaine. There is still rent to pay, and Rachel to think about. Not to mention his parents and in-laws, who between them provided the healthy security net which gives him the power to hand over thousands of dollars, without hesitation, to help out a boy he met kneeling between his legs in a bar.
As he turns the key in his apartment door, he wonders what Shelby would make of that.
Blaine knows exactly where the documents he needs for the Alabama Leather account are. He reckons he can quietly open the door and grab them without disturbing Rachel. He knows that if he sets eyes on her, he is going to have to come clean about everything, and he hasn’t yet worked up the courage for that.
The papers are right where he left them, on the corner of the coffee table. He stoops to pick them up, but pauses when he realises that the edges are flapping, as if moved by some invisible breeze.
Looking up, he notices that the curtains are moving too, and then, stepping closer to the open balcony door, he sees the outline of his wife. Her dark hair, the bright yellow of the slip that hangs from her neat shoulders.
Rachel isn’t alone. There are strong arms around her waist, and she is reaching up high, standing on tiptoes, so she can run her fingers through the hair of the piano tuner with the great ass.
Blaine slips from the apartment before they realise he is there.
Even when he doubles back for the papers he completely failed to grab in his state of shock, they still don’t notice him. They are too caught up in kissing one another in the city's bright morning light.
*
In a way, it is a relief.
Blaine pushes his way through his office building’s big revolving doors, knowing that, when it comes, the inevitable conversation with Rachel is going to be a tiny bit easier.
He’s feeling almost positive about things, itching to break the news to Kurt, as he steps out of the elevator and approaches his office.
That is, he’s feeling positive until he sees Mercedes angrily piling her belongings into a cardboard box at her desk.
“What’s happened?” he asks, hurrying over, just in time to see her toss a random handful of pencils on top of a potted cactus.
Mercedes barely acknowledges him.
“According to master Smythe, I no longer work here.” She snatches up a hole punch that Blaine is pretty sure belongs to the company. “Unprofessional conduct.”
“Yesterday? He fired you over that?”
Blaine thinks back to the day before and the scene in his office with Sebastian that he’s been trying so hard to put out of his mind. He can feel the unwelcome touch, the overbearing smell of Sebastian’ cologne.
“Oh my god,” he says. “He did this because of me.”
Mercedes pauses her angry packing. “He did it because of what I said.”
Blaine shakes his head. “Because of what I wouldn't say.”
He starts to walk towards his office, not really sure what he’s planning to do. But he must have the look of a man who's been pushed to the brink, because before he can reach the door, Mercedes has let go of her box and caught him by the elbow.
“Don't do anything stupid,” she says, when he looks at her. “No sense the both of us getting fired.”
“I am going to write you the most impeccable recommendation letter,” Blaine tells her. “You will waltz right into another job.”
Mercedes smiles, letting go of his arm with a little pat.
“Oh, I know I will, baby. I'm too good for this scene anyway.”
She picks up the box and tucks it under her arm, propping up the weight of it with one hip. “My brother Leo has this band. They're real great. He's always talking about me singing for them. They're going to California to make it big out there. Maybe get into the movies. Seems like God's sending me a sign that I should be going too.”
“That sounds swell."
As he says it, Blaine tries to make his face match the sentiment of his words, but he's not sure he succeeds. The office lights seem too bright, the shadows they cast too stark. He knows in his gut that another run in with Sebastian is just around the corner. Probably, Blaine will open his office door and find him right there.
As though she is having a similar premonition, Mercedes hesitates, her gaze drawn to the office door.
“Goodbye, Mr Anderson. I hope nothing bad happens to you.” She shifts the box to sit more comfortably against her hip, so that she can hold out her hand to shake Blaine’s. “Let me give you my mama's address. She'll have forwarding details for me as soon as I get set up in California. You keep in touch, okay, Mr Anderson?”
“Blaine,” he says, releasing her hand.
Mercedes nods. “Keep in touch, Blaine.”
*
Sure enough, when Blaine pushes open his office door, he comes face to face with the soles of a pair of perfectly polished Oxford shoes.
Sebastian is reclining on Blaine’s couch, feet propped carelessly up on the arm, as he thumbs through Blaine’s copy of The New Yorker.
“This really is the most pretentious rag,” he says mildly. “I’m sort of surprised that you’d buy into it, Anderson.”
Blaine feels his fingers tighten around the doorknob. His whole body is prickling with something that feels suspiciously like anger, rather than fear. Very slowly, he guides the door to his office shut. At the click of the latch, Sebastian looks up.
Blaine squares his shoulders and tries to channel some of Kurt’s courage.
“You fired Mercedes.”
Sebastian tosses the magazine over his shoulder before swinging his legs down to the ground and rising to his feet. He’s tall. Far taller than Blaine.
“I did.”
“Why?”
“So many reasons.” There’s a little quirk to Sebastian’s lips, not quite a smile, but almost there, as he tilts his head to one side and says, “I should really be asking you why you didn’t get rid of her months ago.”
“I know you did this because of me,” Blaine starts, but then his confidence fails. The way that Sebastian is looking at him right now is making him realise that he’s already bitten off more than he can chew.
The other man tucks his hands into his pockets, rocking a little on the balls of his feet, maddeningly casual and in control.
“You think I did it because you were idiotic enough to turn me down?” he drawls. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Anderson, but I’m afraid you just don’t matter to me that much.”
“I only thought–,” Blaine stumbles over the words, wishing now that he hadn’t closed his office door.
“I didn’t fire Mercedes because of you,” Sebastian says. “I fired her because she’s fat. And rude. And having someone like that around the place is putting the clients off.”
He takes a step forwards. “You're not expendable either, you know. There’s plenty of boys out there just like you. They’re just waiting to take your place.”
“They’re welcome to it,” Blaine says, proud of how strong his voice sounds.
Sebastian’s hands are still in his pockets. He smiles for real now, and Blaine can’t tell if it’s a power play, or if he is genuinely amused by the reality of someone standing up to him.
“That high and mighty shit’s not going to fly with me,” Sebastian says. “I know you've been giving it up to someone else. And I know who, too.”
They stare at one another, across the plush burgundy that carpets the office floor.
Behind Sebastian, skyscrapers tower through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and the light from the green glass desk lamp, always turned on by some unseen hand before Blaine even reaches this room, glints off the chrome accents of the desk and the amber-filled crystal of the decanter.
Everything about this place is supposed to be impressive, intimidating. But Blaine is not impressed, or intimidated, by any of it. Not anymore.
He lifts his chin. “What do you want me to do? Thank you for introducing us?”
There’s a pause, and then Sebastian chuckles in disbelief – like he can’t wrap his head around the fact that Blaine would be willing to blow up his own life so spectacularly before ten am on a completely unremarkable Wednesday morning.
“I knew it,” he says. “You've got whore written all over you.”
Feeling a thrill of something like victory, Blaine reaches to open his office door. He holds it wide, looking pointedly at Sebastian.
“Goodbye, Mr Smythe.”
The sounds of the building are making their way in, through the open doorway. The ringing phones and clattering typewriter keys. The office manager walks past, complaining loudly to one of the partners, something about a coffee machine. It is all so normal and familiar, at odds with the mood that has settled inside of Blaine’s office.
Sebastian heads for door, but pauses on his way out, brushing dangerously close.
“I will ruin you,” he tells Blaine, quietly, but clearly.
But Blaine just looks up at him, hand still on the doorhandle. “Not if I ruin you first.”
Sebastian’s lip curls.
“You better be out of here by the end of the day,” he says. And then he walks away.
Once he’s gone, Blaine closes the door behind him, and walks over to his desk.
There is a folder of proofs waiting for him, ready to be checked and signed off before being sent to the printer’s. He opens it, his mind blank, and starts signing. New magazine art for Alabama Leather. A billboard ad for a breakfast cereal, one of their oldest clients. Several invoices to accompany the pieces.
It’s not clear exactly what happens now. Blaine supposes he either has to bite the bullet and go tell the partners that he’s quitting, maybe try to explain what happened; or stay here and wait for them to come to him, believing whatever Sebastian has told them.
As Blaine flips over page after page awaiting his signature, he arrives at a third option. He can simply leave. Right now. He can walk out of the building’s revolving glass doors, and never come back again.
The clarity of the thought is startling. He pauses, staring at a proof for the new billboard mock-up of the Lux detergent ad: that happy couple, draped in pristine bedsheets, beaming at one another, like they haven’t a care in the world. It’s set to go live in the next twenty-four hours.
Blaine sets down his pen, decision made.
It’s only as he is heading for the door, his glass paperweight weighing down his jacket pocket, that he has another idea. It comes to him with the memory of Mercedes talking about colouring in faces with brown Crayola, and the thought of a folded piece of paper that he has tucked inside his wallet.
*
On his way to start a new life, Blaine makes two stops.
The first is to his old apartment on the upper East side, where his key still fits in the lock and where Rachel turns to face him from where she is fixing her hair in front of the mirror, artfully arranging curls to cover the purple love bite showing just above the collar of her blouse.
“Blaine,” she says, her tone a mixture of guilt and defiance. “What are you doing here?”
And Blaine takes a deep breath and steps into the apartment, ready to face the music.
*
The second stop is to collect Kurt, who is halfway through a shift at the library.
The librarian at the front desk tells Blaine he’ll find him working the biography section.
Sure enough, Kurt’s there in the stacks, between the letters C and D. He looks so peaceful here amongst the shelves. The light filtering through the windows catches in his eyelashes and shows up the pale freckles that are scattered across his skin.
“Well hello, sailor,” he says, when he notices Blaine. He tucks Johnny Cash into place on the shelf and turns with James Dean clutched to his chest.
Blaine walks right up to him, wants to reach for him, but doesn’t, mindful, always, of who might be watching.
“So, San Francisco,” he says. “How long do you think it would take us to drive there?”
*
There’s a flurry of packing, of planning, and they leave the very next day, in a piece-of-junk car that they bought for cheap from one of Kurt’s neighbours.
They haven’t made it far, just a couple of hours into Ohio, when a billboard out in front of them catches Blaine’s eye.
It’s only half up. Men with sticks and brushes are sweeping on paste and smoothing out the wrinkles of the big strips of paper, bringing the image together, piece by piece. The workmen are too close to really see the image they are compiling. They’re not able to appreciate the full picture, unlike the people in the cars below.
Even from a distance, the half-completed image doesn't quite make sense yet. But as strip after strip gets glued into place, it becomes more and more obvious. Down in one corner, there’s a bottle of Lux laundry detergent. Towering above that, two figures are pressed close together on a bed, bound up in a tangle of white sheets.
The image will be familiar to most – it’s been a national ad campaign for months.
But there’s something off here. The figures are different. Instead of there being a man pressed against a woman, this is an image of two men.
Kurt does a double take when he notices, slowing the car and leaning out the driver’s side window for a better look as they pass by.
And then the billboard is behind them, and Blaine can’t stop grinning.
Honestly, he hadn’t expected it to go that far. He’d assumed someone would catch it somewhere in the printing process, before the final rolls of paper were shipped out across the country. Some level-headed printing assistant would question the image and put in a call back to the agency, just to double-check. But apparently not.
Or, maybe there was some level-headed printing assistant who had one particular thing in common with the men in that image, who took a risk and waved it past.
Of course, it's only a matter of time before someone takes in the big picture and pulls the plug on it. But that hasn't happened yet.
“Blaine,” Kurt says after a moment, still driving, putting more and more miles in between them and the scene of Blaine’s crime. “Was that my drawing being plastered across that billboard?”
They glance at one another.
Blaine feels happy. Full of light. Full of potential.
“You want to stop for milkshakes soon?” he asks. “My treat,” he adds, when Kurt just laughs at him in amazement.
*
EPILOGUE
Ten years later, 1973
Something special is happening in the city. Kurt can taste it in the air every time he steps out of the little house that he shares with Blaine, and walks out onto the streets of the Castro. There’s optimism everywhere. A bubbling sense of being on the brink of some new wave of possibility, that is just about to break.
Kurt hasn’t felt this way since 1967, when the summer of love was engulfing the city and the streets of Haight-Ashbury were alive with new beats, new ideas, and the unavoidable scent of patchouli.
It’s been a busy morning. He's picked up a couple of sandwiches and takeout coffees from the deli next to the campaign office and now walks with them the couple of blocks to the book shop, where Blaine is working, having opened up this morning.
Blaine’s midway through serving some customers – a girl with long hair and boy in tight jeans. College students. Their glowing skin and bright eyes make Kurt feel ancient, though he’s still only in his thirties.
The college couple leave through the jangling shop door, and Blaine looks up, as pleased to see Kurt as always, even after all these years.
“Hi,” Blaine says, his eyes crinkling into a smile that is half-hidden by his moustache.
Kurt leans across the counter and pecks him on the lips, dropping the pile of campaign posters he’s been carrying under his arm, so that he can reach to squeeze Blaine’s shoulder.
“You got time for a break?” he asks.
“Of course.” Blaine is already reaching for one of the sandwiches.
This is a familiar routine, one that Kurt would have thought impossible just a decade ago. Now, it feels blissfully normal.
As Blaine is chewing his pastrami on rye, he unrolls one of the posters sitting on top of his counter. He’s used to Kurt’s freelance creative ventures, but this one is a particular pet project.
“You really think people will vote for someone called Milk?” Blaine asks, staring at the face on the poster. “I mean, I admire what he stands for, but couldn’t he have changed that to something more...” He casts about for the right word, gesturing with his sandwich. “Debonair?”
“Not everyone can be as dashing as you, dear,” Kurt says, turning the poster around so that he can look into the eyes of the man in the picture. “His name doesn’t matter. It’s what he’s going to do for this city that counts.”
Blaine licks a smear of mustard from the corner of his lips. “You should be running yourself.”
Kurt ignores that, pushing his own thoughts about doing exactly that right back to the recesses of his mind, where they belong. “I said we'd help as much as we can," he says, lifting the poster. "I brought these to put in the shop window.”
“A gay city supervisor,” Blaine says. “Did you ever think you’d see it?”
“He’s not elected yet.”
“I know. But something feels different these days. Like change is happening. Right?”
Kurt thinks about how he felt stepping out of their front door this morning. He thinks of the electricity in the air, and the routine of kissing Blaine’s soft lips in public.
Things are indeed changing. It’s slow; but it’s happening. And here they are, at the very heart of it.
“Right,” Kurt says, leaning across the counter, for one more kiss.