#this one was a buzzerbeater to finish in time but we got there !!!!

[klainepolls]

unexpected- day 6 of 7

by: @kurtsascot

day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5

POLL AT END (LAST POLL)!!!!!

———

Blaine doesn’t know how to answer.

Blaine doesn’t want to answer.

The last thing Blaine wants is to be in this room,

And, yet, he can’t move.

His voice thickens as panic poisons his throat and tongue. “I don’t know what you are talking about.” It’s a miracle Blaine manages to say anything- his lips sticking together, struggling to save him from further mortification, and his chest fighting to keep his heart concealed.

If Kurt had any doubts that Blaine was hiding something, they instantaneously disappear. He appears more confident as he looks onto Blaine and the miserable state he’s in.

“You know me, Blaine,” he persists, pointedly enunciating, ensuring that his words stick, and that everything behind them resonates, “You know my name.”

All at once, Blaine’s slip-up from outside the laundry room becomes glaringly obvious.

He shouldn’t know Kurt’s name yet, but he does.

He knows, and, worst of all, he knows that Kurt knows.

In hindsight, maybe Blaine should have been honest from the get-go. Kurt’s been occupying his thoughts since August. Kurt Hummel, his body and mind, everything he possesses and inhabits, is all Blaine knows.

Blaine’s not sure why he thought he was capable of pretending to forget.

Blaine’s teeth chew into the hollow of his cheek. “I do,” he concedes with all the breath in his lungs, and he just prepares for the worst, for the incoming rejection that’s due to follow.

But, Kurt’s not mad.

Well, at least, not outwardly- Blaine doesn’t allow himself to dwell on the expression that Kurt wears or try to parse what Kurt could be thinking. Blaine doesn’t have the best track record with romance. He’s not the best at navigating where friendly and flirty stops and where something more starts.

Kurt tries to pacify Blaine with a smile. He releases the edge of the desk from his hold, fingers interweaving around the ceramic handle. “Why lie? Is knowing me that terrible?” He jests, cup over his chest, the soft tinks of fingernails gifting Blaine’s ears something other than his heartbeat to chase.

“I don’t know…I didn’t think you’d remember me,” Blaine supplies, leaning against the wall for some stability, making sure the hallway remains only a few steps away. If everything goes south, if Kurt becomes thoroughly disgusted in him, at least Blaine has an exit plan. “We didn’t talk much.”

Kurt laughs in that bubbly, almost fond way, again. A bit of Blaine’s heart is lost in the puffs that push past his pillowy lips. Hot coffee has made the flesh pinker, and Blaine finds himself enamored with how they curve and twist to form dimples and laugh lines. “Of course, I remember you,” Kurt says. “You were there for all my office hours, even when you didn’t have any questions.”

A part of Blaine dies. “I was obsessive,” Blaine admits, reluctantly. It’s embarrassing- He’s been a lovesick mess all day, but, last semester, he was under the impression that he was subtle-

“I don’t know- I thought it was sweet,” Kurt shrugs, eyes flickering behind the lip of the cup.

Blaine’s heart flutters, but he’s too distressed to do anything with the feeling. “And, today, I spilled coffee all over you,” he argues. “I didn’t want to admit that I knew who you were in case you didn’t remember me. And, I was worried that, if you knew who I was, and I brought up that you were my TA, it would make everything weird.”

“Why would that make everything weird?” Kurt asks, stepping forward, inching closer.

Blaine sighs, following Kurt’s legs as they glide over his carpet, wading through the air like it’s nothing, like it’s not suffocating. When did breathing become so difficult? “I was hoping to have a clean slate,” Blaine explains as Kurt nears. “I didn’t want you to have any… preconceptions.”

Kurt stretches to deposit the cup on the dresser to Blaine’s right. His still damp shirt rides up, untucking from his pants and wrinkling over his hips. “I don’t have a negative opinion of you,” he says simply.

With only a couple feet between them, Blaine lifts his gaze to meet Kurt’s eyes.

Maybe it’s the proximity, maybe it’s how Blaine can smell his detergent all over Kurt, maybe it’s his coffee on his breath, but Blaine feels his lips move, and, despite his better judgement, he states the obvious. “I wish things were different.”

Kurt sucks in his bottom lip, eyes glued to the hesitancy beyond Blaine’s face, taking in all of Blaine’s imperfections and papier-mâcheing him back together.

“I’m… not opposed to different.”