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[Fic] Can't Run from Myself (klaine advent prompt #11 Key)
Can't Run from Myself
Kurt/Blaine | T | Drama/Romance | non-graphic sexual situations, getting caught, mild embarrassment | Set the morning after "So Many Riches", between 4x21 "Wonder-ful" and 4x22 "All or Nothing" | for klaineadvent prompt #11 key | title from Whitney Houston’s "I Have Nothing" | The morning after spending the night with Blaine, Kurt has a conversation with his father that helps him reframe his ambivalence toward a relationship with Blaine. | ~2,000 words
Spring 2013
Dew glimmers silver upon the grass, and cool humidity gentles the crispness of the Spring morning. Blaine's mouth tastes faintly of coffee. Along the fence the orange daylilies have just begun to unfurl, and finches chirp and chatter among the trees. Kurt draws away from kissing Blaine to breathe. Under the blanket they share, he's growing hot despite the fresh morning chill, and so is Blaine. The sky glows a pale straw gold beyond the rooftop of their back neighbor, and pale azure above. Blaine's eyelashes flutter open. The sun is above the horizon; they watched it rise together.
"Should we take this back inside?" Blaine asks, low and cracking over a faint whisper. Beneath the steady warmth of Blaine's gaze, Kurt's heartbeat matches the flutter of Blaine's eyelashes. In Blaine's eyes, there are questions that beckon to Kurt still, with a persistent urgency, even though they have glutted themselves upon one another all night.
Kurt hasn't got enough answers within him for all the questions Blaine has for him. But here, like this, after everything, he feels profoundly safe, peaceful, and centered in the moment. He can answer some of them. So Kurt strokes smooth a stiff curl above Blaine's ear, and holds himself easy within the immediate embrace of Blaine's affection. Then he replies, "Yeah."
.
Inside, they don't make it very far. Their coffee cups clunk into the sink, and their blanket slips from Kurt's shoulders to the kitchen floor. Kurt follows it down, and tugs on Blaine's hands to bring him with him. The blanket offers little padding, but the unyielding tile is nothing compared to having Blaine in his arms: his mouth moving, tender and hungry, with his own; Blaine's hands slipping under his t-shirt to splay hot across his skin; and his body, lean and gorgeous, moving with such intention against his own.
"Here?" Blaine asks between kisses.
"Yes... ooh," Kurt replies. "I just want..."
Blaine's response is a deep hum and to push the waistband of Kurt's briefs down.
.
They're like that, t-shirts rucked up and underwear around their thighs, on the kitchen floor, when Kurt hears the vibration of the garage door.
"Shit," he says, and sits up so fast, he knocks his forehead against Blaine's.
"Ow," Blaine says, scrambling to haul up his briefs.
There's no way to salvage the situation, really; Kurt can only minimize the damage and embarrassment. At least they make it off the floor. Blaine's wrapping the blanket around himself and giving Kurt a concerned look, while Kurt grabs the dishtowel to casually hold in front of himself and puts the island between him and the door about to open. He hears his Dad and Carole laughing on the other side of it, and then it opens, and they come into the kitchen from the short back hall.
"Hi!" Kurt says, far too brightly and forcing a smile. "We weren't expecting you back so soon."
Carole glances down with a grin and his Dad's eyebrows rise. "Carole has to get ready for work."
"I'm, um, just going to go use the shower? Quickly?" Blaine says.
"Sure!" Kurt says, and watches Blaine leave the kitchen. Then he turns back to his Dad and Carole, determined in his cheerful nonchalance. "I was going to make breakfast. Have you guys eaten?"
"We're fine," his Dad says. "We ate at the hotel. Why don't you go get dressed, Kurt."
.
Blaine doesn't stay for breakfast. Standing in the driveway by Blaine's Prius, Kurt apologizes to him for the abrupt interruption, and then he hugs him.
Blaine stifles a yawn against Kurt's shoulder. "I'll call you tonight?"
"Please do," Kurt says.
.
No one's downstairs when Kurt goes back into the house, so he returns to the kitchen to get breakfast for himself. He's whisking some eggs for an omelet when his Dad comes in. There's no preamble from his father, just a direct question, "So, you going tell me what's going on with you and Blaine?" It's a relief, having his Dad, not only in the clear from the doctors, but also wholly back to himself, carrying on like there's barely been a hiccup. Even so, Kurt doesn't welcome the question. He hadn't intended anyone to know.
"There's nothi—" Kurt breaks off the reflexive denial and closes his eyes for a few breaths, lets the whisk fall still.
"You're not back together then, I take it," his Dad says.
Kurt opens his eyes and shakes his head. "No. We're just enjoying each other's company," he says.
"Evidently," his Dad says, and the skeptical sarcasm in his tone has Kurt frowning.
Kurt glances back over his shoulder. "What?"
"Kurt," his Dad says, and then he pulls out one of the stools by the island and sits with a heavy sigh. "You've got to know how he feels about you."
Kurt presses his lips together and nods. It feels like his heart can't beat around the fullness in his chest. He turns his attention back to the bowl of beaten eggs and exhales a soft, "I do."
"And how do you feel about him? It's not like you to use—"
"I'm not using him," Kurt bites back, snippier than he intends to be, and shoots a glare at his Dad. "Blaine knows that."
"Okay," his Dad says raising his hands to forfend Kurt's defensiveness. "It's okay, you know what I mean."
Kurt releases the whisk and softens his tone before he continues. "It's just complicated," he says.
"Your feelings about Blaine?" his Dad asks.
With a shake of his head, Kurt turns around and leans back against the edge of the counter. "I know how I feel about him," Kurt says, "What I don't know is how I feel about being in a relationship with him again."
"Well," he Dad says, "from where I'm sitting, it looks like you are already."
"We're not."
"So what's the difference?" his Dad asks.
"What do you mean?"
His Dad raises an eyebrow; it's the look that means 'stop being so deliberately obtuse, Kurt.' and then he says, "Between whatever you guys are doing now and being in a relationship."
"We're friends." Kurt says simply, and—he hopes—firmly enough for his Dad to accept.
But his father isn't dissuaded. "Yeah, and?"
Kurt rolls his eyes. "Do I really have to say it?"
"I think maybe you do."
"Dad," Kurt half-turns back toward the counter and fidgets with the handle of the whisk.
"Okay, look, if you can't own up to what you're doing with Blaine, then, to me that indicates you're not proud of yourself for what you're doing. You know how easily you could hurt him, Kurt. And I know you're not a vengeful person. You don't hold grudges."
"I definitely don't want to hurt him," Kurt says. "And I don't plan to."
"Well, you're going to, if you can't figure out what you want from him and be honest with both you and him."
Kurt sighs and his shoulder slump. He drops the whisk back into the bowl. "I am being honest, but the truth is complicated."
His Dad leans forward, resting on his elbows. "Break it down then. What do you want?"
Kurt has to smile at that. It's how his Dad would walk him through problems when he was young. "I want what we had. Before."
"You're never going to have that again," his Dad says, and that's just as it was when Kurt was young too; his Dad doesn't spare him the difficult truths.
"I know, I just... I miss him, Dad, so much. All the time, every day. I just want to be with him again."
"All right, so what are you afraid of?"
"That... if he cheats again, I won't be able to forgive him a second time. I won't be able to survive it, emotionally."
"That's a reasonable fear."
"So if we can just keep things like this, best friends who sometimes..." Kurt pauses to give his Dad a wry smile. "... enjoy each other's company, then he can't cheat on me again, so I'll never have to forgive him again, and maybe we can be okay like that."
"You won't be," his Dad says, and it sounds like a strange and serious prophecy. "You're lying to yourself if you think you can be."
"Why? Why can't it work like this?"
"Because it's less than both of you want, you're going to be trying to get more from him than you're giving back, and knowing Blaine, he'll keep giving it until you both end up so badly hurt you'll lose each other entirely."
"I would never do that to him."
"Not on purpose," his Dad says. "You'd never hurt him on purpose, I know that, but that doesn't mean you won't. Or that you can't."
Kurt casts his gaze at the floor. "You make me sound like a terrible person."
"You're not," his Dad says gently, "but Blaine is vulnerable to you in a way I don't think you fully understand."
That's probably true enough. "So what should I do?"
"I can't tell you that, but I think you know that leaving Blaine holding on to some kind of false hope is not a kind thing for you to do."
"But it's not false," Kurt says, rubbing his hands over his face and feeling the disorientation of the sleepless night sink a heavy confusion into his head. "I'm trying to figure this out. If I can let myself trust him again."
"Okay," his Dad says. "Then you got to figure out what it means to trust him."
That one's easy to answer: "Trusting him means knowing he will never, ever cheat on me again."
His Dad's smile is sad and affectionately amused. "Oh, Kurt, that's not what it means."
Kurt's hands fall from his face, and he blinks at his Dad.
"Trust is about having faith when you don't know for sure," his Dad says.
But Kurt's never had much time for belief without evidence. "Faith in what exactly?"
"That, as two fallible human beings who love each other, you recognize there will be times you make mistakes, even hurt each other—even when you don't mean to—and there'll be times that are going to be real tough, but you believe in yourselves and each other to get through those hurts and tough times, together. Trust doesn't mean bad things won't happen or neither of you will screw up. It means putting your faith in each other to do your best and figure it out together. You have to trust yourself as much as you trust him."
Kurt folds his arms across his chest and drops his chin to his chest. He lets his Dad's words settle in his mind. His understanding morphs as he thinks on them. Understands how Blaine didn't really trust him back in October. Understands, too, how Blaine is trusting him now—through last night and everything they shared, even in the absence of Kurt being sure about very much. Blaine is so sure of himself, of Kurt, of them. He has been since Valentine's Day.
And Kurt realizes, in a sudden, light-headed rush, Blaine trusts himself now too, in a way he hadn't before they broke up. Blaine trusts himself not to cheat again, and so maybe Kurt may let himself trust that, too. Have faith in Blaine and his own self-knowledge, his intentions and his love. Kurt knows well that Blaine's infidelity hurt them both equally badly. Neither of them would choose to go through it again. And somehow...
It's not even that Kurt lacks evidence for a belief in Blaine's future fidelity, but the logic of it is still hard to work through, because he keeps demanding a simple yes or no answer to the question of: will Blaine cheat again? He doesn't know the answer; he can't—and neither can Blaine. And maybe, at its foundation, trust isn't entirely rational, and the reason Kurt cannot find any clear logic to follow is because there is none. It's fundamentally emotional, and if he trusts Blaine, then he has to accept the unknowable risk of it. The emotional truth remains: "I do love him," Kurt says. "More than anything. I never stopped."
"Yeah," his Dad says with a small smile.
"Is that enough?" Kurt asks him. "For all the rest?"
"That's up to you," his Dad says.
It's not actually enough to resolve Kurt's ambivalence just then, but it gives him a new perspective, a new approach for working through his own confusion. He'll try to find the answers for himself, and then he can start answering the rest of Blaine's questions.
Kurt/Blaine | T | Drama/Romance | non-graphic sexual situations, getting caught, mild embarrassment | Set the morning after "So Many Riches", between 4x21 "Wonder-ful" and 4x22 "All or Nothing" | for klaineadvent prompt #11 key | title from Whitney Houston’s "I Have Nothing" | The morning after spending the night with Blaine, Kurt has a conversation with his father that helps him reframe his ambivalence toward a relationship with Blaine. | ~2,000 words
Spring 2013
Dew glimmers silver upon the grass, and cool humidity gentles the crispness of the Spring morning. Blaine's mouth tastes faintly of coffee. Along the fence the orange daylilies have just begun to unfurl, and finches chirp and chatter among the trees. Kurt draws away from kissing Blaine to breathe. Under the blanket they share, he's growing hot despite the fresh morning chill, and so is Blaine. The sky glows a pale straw gold beyond the rooftop of their back neighbor, and pale azure above. Blaine's eyelashes flutter open. The sun is above the horizon; they watched it rise together.
"Should we take this back inside?" Blaine asks, low and cracking over a faint whisper. Beneath the steady warmth of Blaine's gaze, Kurt's heartbeat matches the flutter of Blaine's eyelashes. In Blaine's eyes, there are questions that beckon to Kurt still, with a persistent urgency, even though they have glutted themselves upon one another all night.
Kurt hasn't got enough answers within him for all the questions Blaine has for him. But here, like this, after everything, he feels profoundly safe, peaceful, and centered in the moment. He can answer some of them. So Kurt strokes smooth a stiff curl above Blaine's ear, and holds himself easy within the immediate embrace of Blaine's affection. Then he replies, "Yeah."
.
Inside, they don't make it very far. Their coffee cups clunk into the sink, and their blanket slips from Kurt's shoulders to the kitchen floor. Kurt follows it down, and tugs on Blaine's hands to bring him with him. The blanket offers little padding, but the unyielding tile is nothing compared to having Blaine in his arms: his mouth moving, tender and hungry, with his own; Blaine's hands slipping under his t-shirt to splay hot across his skin; and his body, lean and gorgeous, moving with such intention against his own.
"Here?" Blaine asks between kisses.
"Yes... ooh," Kurt replies. "I just want..."
Blaine's response is a deep hum and to push the waistband of Kurt's briefs down.
.
They're like that, t-shirts rucked up and underwear around their thighs, on the kitchen floor, when Kurt hears the vibration of the garage door.
"Shit," he says, and sits up so fast, he knocks his forehead against Blaine's.
"Ow," Blaine says, scrambling to haul up his briefs.
There's no way to salvage the situation, really; Kurt can only minimize the damage and embarrassment. At least they make it off the floor. Blaine's wrapping the blanket around himself and giving Kurt a concerned look, while Kurt grabs the dishtowel to casually hold in front of himself and puts the island between him and the door about to open. He hears his Dad and Carole laughing on the other side of it, and then it opens, and they come into the kitchen from the short back hall.
"Hi!" Kurt says, far too brightly and forcing a smile. "We weren't expecting you back so soon."
Carole glances down with a grin and his Dad's eyebrows rise. "Carole has to get ready for work."
"I'm, um, just going to go use the shower? Quickly?" Blaine says.
"Sure!" Kurt says, and watches Blaine leave the kitchen. Then he turns back to his Dad and Carole, determined in his cheerful nonchalance. "I was going to make breakfast. Have you guys eaten?"
"We're fine," his Dad says. "We ate at the hotel. Why don't you go get dressed, Kurt."
.
Blaine doesn't stay for breakfast. Standing in the driveway by Blaine's Prius, Kurt apologizes to him for the abrupt interruption, and then he hugs him.
Blaine stifles a yawn against Kurt's shoulder. "I'll call you tonight?"
"Please do," Kurt says.
.
No one's downstairs when Kurt goes back into the house, so he returns to the kitchen to get breakfast for himself. He's whisking some eggs for an omelet when his Dad comes in. There's no preamble from his father, just a direct question, "So, you going tell me what's going on with you and Blaine?" It's a relief, having his Dad, not only in the clear from the doctors, but also wholly back to himself, carrying on like there's barely been a hiccup. Even so, Kurt doesn't welcome the question. He hadn't intended anyone to know.
"There's nothi—" Kurt breaks off the reflexive denial and closes his eyes for a few breaths, lets the whisk fall still.
"You're not back together then, I take it," his Dad says.
Kurt opens his eyes and shakes his head. "No. We're just enjoying each other's company," he says.
"Evidently," his Dad says, and the skeptical sarcasm in his tone has Kurt frowning.
Kurt glances back over his shoulder. "What?"
"Kurt," his Dad says, and then he pulls out one of the stools by the island and sits with a heavy sigh. "You've got to know how he feels about you."
Kurt presses his lips together and nods. It feels like his heart can't beat around the fullness in his chest. He turns his attention back to the bowl of beaten eggs and exhales a soft, "I do."
"And how do you feel about him? It's not like you to use—"
"I'm not using him," Kurt bites back, snippier than he intends to be, and shoots a glare at his Dad. "Blaine knows that."
"Okay," his Dad says raising his hands to forfend Kurt's defensiveness. "It's okay, you know what I mean."
Kurt releases the whisk and softens his tone before he continues. "It's just complicated," he says.
"Your feelings about Blaine?" his Dad asks.
With a shake of his head, Kurt turns around and leans back against the edge of the counter. "I know how I feel about him," Kurt says, "What I don't know is how I feel about being in a relationship with him again."
"Well," he Dad says, "from where I'm sitting, it looks like you are already."
"We're not."
"So what's the difference?" his Dad asks.
"What do you mean?"
His Dad raises an eyebrow; it's the look that means 'stop being so deliberately obtuse, Kurt.' and then he says, "Between whatever you guys are doing now and being in a relationship."
"We're friends." Kurt says simply, and—he hopes—firmly enough for his Dad to accept.
But his father isn't dissuaded. "Yeah, and?"
Kurt rolls his eyes. "Do I really have to say it?"
"I think maybe you do."
"Dad," Kurt half-turns back toward the counter and fidgets with the handle of the whisk.
"Okay, look, if you can't own up to what you're doing with Blaine, then, to me that indicates you're not proud of yourself for what you're doing. You know how easily you could hurt him, Kurt. And I know you're not a vengeful person. You don't hold grudges."
"I definitely don't want to hurt him," Kurt says. "And I don't plan to."
"Well, you're going to, if you can't figure out what you want from him and be honest with both you and him."
Kurt sighs and his shoulder slump. He drops the whisk back into the bowl. "I am being honest, but the truth is complicated."
His Dad leans forward, resting on his elbows. "Break it down then. What do you want?"
Kurt has to smile at that. It's how his Dad would walk him through problems when he was young. "I want what we had. Before."
"You're never going to have that again," his Dad says, and that's just as it was when Kurt was young too; his Dad doesn't spare him the difficult truths.
"I know, I just... I miss him, Dad, so much. All the time, every day. I just want to be with him again."
"All right, so what are you afraid of?"
"That... if he cheats again, I won't be able to forgive him a second time. I won't be able to survive it, emotionally."
"That's a reasonable fear."
"So if we can just keep things like this, best friends who sometimes..." Kurt pauses to give his Dad a wry smile. "... enjoy each other's company, then he can't cheat on me again, so I'll never have to forgive him again, and maybe we can be okay like that."
"You won't be," his Dad says, and it sounds like a strange and serious prophecy. "You're lying to yourself if you think you can be."
"Why? Why can't it work like this?"
"Because it's less than both of you want, you're going to be trying to get more from him than you're giving back, and knowing Blaine, he'll keep giving it until you both end up so badly hurt you'll lose each other entirely."
"I would never do that to him."
"Not on purpose," his Dad says. "You'd never hurt him on purpose, I know that, but that doesn't mean you won't. Or that you can't."
Kurt casts his gaze at the floor. "You make me sound like a terrible person."
"You're not," his Dad says gently, "but Blaine is vulnerable to you in a way I don't think you fully understand."
That's probably true enough. "So what should I do?"
"I can't tell you that, but I think you know that leaving Blaine holding on to some kind of false hope is not a kind thing for you to do."
"But it's not false," Kurt says, rubbing his hands over his face and feeling the disorientation of the sleepless night sink a heavy confusion into his head. "I'm trying to figure this out. If I can let myself trust him again."
"Okay," his Dad says. "Then you got to figure out what it means to trust him."
That one's easy to answer: "Trusting him means knowing he will never, ever cheat on me again."
His Dad's smile is sad and affectionately amused. "Oh, Kurt, that's not what it means."
Kurt's hands fall from his face, and he blinks at his Dad.
"Trust is about having faith when you don't know for sure," his Dad says.
But Kurt's never had much time for belief without evidence. "Faith in what exactly?"
"That, as two fallible human beings who love each other, you recognize there will be times you make mistakes, even hurt each other—even when you don't mean to—and there'll be times that are going to be real tough, but you believe in yourselves and each other to get through those hurts and tough times, together. Trust doesn't mean bad things won't happen or neither of you will screw up. It means putting your faith in each other to do your best and figure it out together. You have to trust yourself as much as you trust him."
Kurt folds his arms across his chest and drops his chin to his chest. He lets his Dad's words settle in his mind. His understanding morphs as he thinks on them. Understands how Blaine didn't really trust him back in October. Understands, too, how Blaine is trusting him now—through last night and everything they shared, even in the absence of Kurt being sure about very much. Blaine is so sure of himself, of Kurt, of them. He has been since Valentine's Day.
And Kurt realizes, in a sudden, light-headed rush, Blaine trusts himself now too, in a way he hadn't before they broke up. Blaine trusts himself not to cheat again, and so maybe Kurt may let himself trust that, too. Have faith in Blaine and his own self-knowledge, his intentions and his love. Kurt knows well that Blaine's infidelity hurt them both equally badly. Neither of them would choose to go through it again. And somehow...
It's not even that Kurt lacks evidence for a belief in Blaine's future fidelity, but the logic of it is still hard to work through, because he keeps demanding a simple yes or no answer to the question of: will Blaine cheat again? He doesn't know the answer; he can't—and neither can Blaine. And maybe, at its foundation, trust isn't entirely rational, and the reason Kurt cannot find any clear logic to follow is because there is none. It's fundamentally emotional, and if he trusts Blaine, then he has to accept the unknowable risk of it. The emotional truth remains: "I do love him," Kurt says. "More than anything. I never stopped."
"Yeah," his Dad says with a small smile.
"Is that enough?" Kurt asks him. "For all the rest?"
"That's up to you," his Dad says.
It's not actually enough to resolve Kurt's ambivalence just then, but it gives him a new perspective, a new approach for working through his own confusion. He'll try to find the answers for himself, and then he can start answering the rest of Blaine's questions.
no subject
Somehow, there is always something in your stories that speak to me on such a deep level, or seems to be relevant to something in my life. Sometimes it's just the tiniest detail, but you have this wonderful knack for writing that is not only moving and emotional, but also very relevant (at least to me).
no subject
I'm really really glad you liked this one. It had been turning over in my head for a while, this kind of conversation between Burt and Kurt. And I'm just so humbled, flattered, and honored (I hope that doesn't sound too weird?) to be able to touch on themes or details that are relevant and deep (especially when I think about how you've been reading my fanfiction for about as long as I've been writing (10-12 years?!) so I'm super happy if I can still produce something fresh and worthwhile for you. :) ) That's the highest praise I could hope for. <3<3<3 Thank you so much! *hugshugshugs*
no subject
Yay! I'm so glad I caught it then. I always know I'm going to love anything you write, yet somehow you STILL manage to surprise me with the depth of feelings you manage to stir. And it doesn't sound weird at all, because somehow I feel those ways just reading your stories, the way that you find those important threads and bring them to light with all the tenderness and love that you can. It's like a hug I didn't know I needed.
And wow! It feels like just the other day I was waffling about emailing this amazing fic author about a Duo and Trowa fic. ;) And you have really just grown so much with your writing. I am thrilled and honored to have been along for the ride, and look forward to more!
(and re: the thing on tumblr: you rock and I am so excited for you! I'm in a similar boat, and your bravery means a lot to me)