storypaint (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
storypaint) wrote2011-02-02 01:02 am
storypaint) wrote2011-02-02 01:02 am
Entry tags:
[Glee] can't even think straight (Kurt/Rachel)
Title: can't even think straight
Fandom: Glee
Length: 5013 words
Prompt:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
glee_fluff_meme: Between Kurt still identifying as gay, Rachel being bi, and both of them immersed in gay culture through Rachel's dads, their love of theater, etc, Kurt Hummel and Rachel Berry may just have the queerest heterosexual relationship in the history of the world. [...]
Pairing: Kurt/Rachel; past canon pairings mentioned along with Blaine/Kurt and Rachel/Quinn
Other: GBLT themes including some slight biphobia, homophobia, community issues, etc etc. PG for this and sexuality.
Summary/Excerpt: Kurt and Rachel have the gayest straight relationship ever. The first time they kiss, it's on a dare, because this is high school, and Rachel Berry has never had a captive audience to play Truth or Dare with.
The first time they kiss, it's on a dare, because this is high school, and Rachel Berry has never had a captive audience to play Truth or Dare with.
It's barely a peck at first, until Kurt lunges forward dangerously, figuring that he might as well go for broke, might as well try to figure out exactly what Finn sees in Rachel, even though he's sure he'll never understand it. She tastes like Santana's lipgloss (because they are teenagers, and not particularly creative with their dares), and she's a wet kisser. When they spring apart, heartbeats later, they wipe their mouths with identical disgusted gestures. Kurt adjusts his collar fussily, trying desperately not to think about how Rachel gave him the best kiss he's ever received.
"Dude," Puck says, "that's still the gayest shit I've ever seen." Finn nods a little, and then stops himself hurriedly.
"Puck!" Kurt snaps, at the same time that Rachel says, "Noah!"
He lets her give the lecture about using the word 'gay' in a derogatory manner, because he's still a little shell-shocked about how much he enjoyed that kiss.
*
Three months later, Rachel comes out as bisexual in front of the Glee Club by singing Diana Ross's "I'm Coming Out." Kurt is not impressed with her song selection, or her rendition. He'd secretly planned to sing it himself for one of Mr. Schuester's theme weeks, and now it would just feel like he was trying to show her up. Which he could, but he'd been making an effort to be less actively mean to her, in hopes that he would be able to stop thinking about that kiss they shared.
She ends her performance with a passionate confession that she can't quit thinking about Quinn, and that she may have started chasing Finn because she wanted to have his girl, not because she wanted to have him. Finn scowls at this, and Kurt shoots him his fiercest glare, because there is absolutely no reason to complicate this any further.
"Could you have possibly missed the fact that I hate you more than anyone else in this room, including Santana?" Quinn says, wearing a distasteful expression.
"I, I thought maybe that you were acting out in fear of your true feelings, due to the conflict of your religious beliefs," Rachel answers uncertainly.
Kurt glances around the room. Puck is clearly picturing his baby mama getting with his ex-girlfriend, judging from the glazed look in his eyes. Finn is still scowling. Sam looks confused. The rest of them look like they've gotten to the interesting part of a soap opera. He's almost surprised that someone hasn't produced popcorn. Even Mr. Schuester seems too shocked to interfere with what promises to be a gigantic blow-up, but Kurt isn't surprised by that at all.
He sighs and stands up, and he's just loud enough that attention shifts to him. Good. He crosses his arms and rolls his eyes.
"As difficult as it is to admit, I think this may be the time to reconsider your GayLesbAll idea, Rachel. I absolutely refuse to let you design the posters or name the club, however."
Rachel swallows and wipes quickly at her watery eyes. "We could call it Both Directions!" she suggests brightly.
"Absolutely not," Kurt says.
He picks his way down off the risers, nods at Mr. Schuester, and says, "We're taking a personal day. I'll do my assignment tomorrow." Mr. Schue barely nods in response, but Kurt has already turned away and taken Rachel's hand, wrapping it firmly around his bicep and pulling her out of the room. She hesitates at the door, mumbling something about her backpack, and Kurt has left his too, but he doesn't hesitate.
"I'll text Mercedes and ask her to bring our stuff over after practice," he says after the door shuts, and they're fast-walking away from the awkward silence of the choir room. Rachel's hand tightens on his arm.
"You didn't have to do that, you know," she says, and she's half-jogging to keep up with him; her legs are so short. He slows down a little. He can just barely hear Mercedes rip into the number she's prepared for the day, which means that the rest of Glee Club has moved on for at least the moment. No one is going to be chasing them.
"Yes, I did," he says shortly. He thinks about saying something else, but he doesn't. There's time, later, to explain to Finn that he didn't make Rachel gay, and to explain to everyone what bisexuality is, and how Rachel's fathers being gay didn't cause it, and to bully them into joining Both Directions (what a stupid name; Kurt fully intends to call it something like Pride instead).
He takes her back to his house, and Burt blinks but doesn't ask when Kurt drags Rachel downstairs with him. He looks like he's curious -- Kurt has never been quiet about his dislike for Rachel, and Kurt has certainly never mentioned the kiss. She hasn't been to the house in several months, since she and Finn broke up. Kurt lifts his eyebrows as he pulls Rachel through the kitchen by the hand, hoping that his father understands it as a promise to explain everything later.
"Nice to see you again, Mr. Hummel," Rachel manages before they hit the basement stairs and Kurt finally lets go of her hand. His palm is sweaty and he just isn't good with physical affection, or whatever this is. He wipes his palm on the wall, because the paint will suffer less than his nice slacks, and he pauses uncertainly in the middle of the room for a moment. He and Mercedes usually just hang out on the bed, but that would be weird with Rachel. Finally he decides to sit on his vanity seat, and he gestures her towards his bed.
She sits down, still looking a little confused. "I can't believe I did that," she says after a moment. "Quinn --"
"Rachel," Kurt says, and he is trying to be as kind as possible; she seems to realize this and lets him interrupt. "Life isn't a fairytale. The underdog doesn't date the quarterback. Or the head cheerleader."
Rachel opens her mouth, but Kurt continues. "You're the star of your own life, but you have to make it your life, not just base it on some story you've heard someone sing."
This was a somewhat difficult revelation for Kurt a year ago. He transferred to the perfect school, found the perfect boyfriend, and as far as he was concerned, they were well on their way to being elected prom kings, when the whole thing came tumbling messily down. He neglected to let Blaine be a person besides the perfect boyfriend and wise older mentor, and finally Blaine became tired of it. And now Kurt was back at McKinley, since someone (probably Sue, but he never dared to ask) found enough clout to kick Karofsky out. The worst of the bullying was gone, but he still had to deal with jerks every day, and probably it would get worse if this GayLesbAll idea got off the ground.
Rachel lets Kurt work on her cuticles while she bemoans heteronormativity, homophobia, and the fact that her no-longer-secret crush really does hate her guts. He only half-listens, focused on the pretty hands he's repairing.
"It was very brave of you to come out," he interrupts her, once, and she smiles.
*
It's probably cliche for Rachel and Kurt to become something like best friends afterwards, but they do anyway. Mercedes drifts back into Quinn's orbit, and Kurt can't figure out how to explain to her that he can't follow. Rachel needs someone, and apparently that someone is him. He can't take Quinn's side here.
They found the gay-straight alliance and call it McKinley Pride. Ms. Pillsbury-Howell agrees to be their faculty sponsor. Figgins protests, and so do some of the conservative parents, but after Rachel talks loudly enough about her connections to the ACLU, and Burt spends some time in Figgins's office, he reluctantly agrees. Their glittery posters are systematically destroyed by non-Glee football players and cheerleaders, but most of New Directions shows up for the first meeting, and a couple other kids too. Kurt and Rachel are co-presidents who spend all week arguing loudly about what they want to do for the meeting this week, but by the time they walk into the classroom each week, they have a plan.
They have trouble agreeing on a lot of things, so they try to focus on the things they do both appreciate: they have a similar taste in boys, watch every Broadway show recording they can find, and they both want to get out of Lima as soon as possible. The next time that the Sound of Music Sing-Along is in town, they go. About halfway through "My Favorite Things," Rachel takes Kurt's hand on the armrest. Although Kurt enjoys the film, he can't help but feel like a ridiculous heterosexual boy, hyper-aware of Rachel's fingers on his.
He doesn't think she understands what she's doing until he drops her off at her house later that night. She hesitates with her hand on the car door, and then leans across and kisses Kurt firmly on the mouth.
"What is this?" Kurt sputters. Rachel's eyes are bright in the dark.
"I promise that I don't fall in love with every person who's nice to me," she says, all in a rush, and he's silent, because he doesn't want to admit that he was entertaining the thought. (That still doesn't explain what is wrong with him right now, though.)
"I hope not," he says after a moment. "Because I'm gay, Rachel. And you're not a boy."
"That's one of the nicest things someone has ever said to me," she says, and her shoulders shake, and before he can talk himself out of it, he's clambered over the space between their seats, and letting her cry on a very nice designer jacket that will now need dry-cleaning. He presses her head into his chest, and strokes her hair, wondering when it was exactly that he was replaced by his evil double, and how he hadn't noticed.
"I realize that this isn't helping my case," Rachel mumbles into his chest.
"Not at all," he says, but they sit there uncomfortably for a few more minutes while Rachel collects herself. He waits for her to open the front door and go inside before he drives away.
*
Somehow they get into the habit of kissing each other goodnight, although only if no one else is around, because they've both agreed without saying that letting other people know would just needlessly complicate things. After all, they still fight like angry housecats, even if they do usually find a place to agree after all the shouting.
But they are definitely not dating, and Kurt refuses to be jealous when Rachel gets a date with a girl she met at her ballet class. He helps her pick out a dress that isn't utterly eye-burning to wear, and insists that she find time to give him text updates. He spends the night not really watching a bad action movie with Finn on cable and checking his phone every two minutes.
During a small interval between explosions, which probably contains the plot, Finn turns to Kurt and wrinkles his nose. "Are you dating Blaine again?" he asks.
"What?" Kurt squawks, wincing inwardly at the way his voice goes too high.
"You never text anyone else that much. Not even Mercedes," Finn says. His brow furrows. "This time I really do think he's trying to psych out the competition.
"No! Absolutely not! I'm just --"
Unwilling to admit that he's waiting for Rachel's status updates, he shoves the phone in his pocket and somehow manages to resist checking it until he feels it vibrate against his leg. He goes to the bathroom and opens his text inbox.
new message from "Rachel" 3/9/12 7:09PM
She doesn't like musicals.
He stares at it from a long moment, and refuses to acknowledge the weird relief that's creeping up inside him.
new message from "Kurt" 3/9/12 7:15PM
that bad, huh?
new message from "Kurt" 3/9/12 7:16PM
you could come rescue me from bad action movies
He waits for an answer, ignoring it when Finn calls from the living room. "You okay in there?" Kurt is not. He's mad at himself for reacting this way, and more than a little confused. A year ago, he hated Rachel and would just as soon throw her to wolves as rescue her from a bad date. In fact, he'd probably encourage the wolves to rip up her awful skirts.
It's one thing for a relationship to change over the course of a year. It's another thing when Kurt isn't quite sure where it's going.
new message from "Rachel" 3/9/12 7:20PM
I don't want to ditch. That's rude.
new message from "Rachel" 3/9/12 7:21PM
But there is no romance in her heart.
Kurt snickers and lets himself out of the bathroom. When Rachel arrives, twenty minutes later, he drags her downstairs, pointedly ignoring Finn's mouthed, "Her?" She recounts the failed evening in her usual theatrical manner, falling back against his bed and throwing her arm over her eyes.
Kurt resists the urge to brush the pale skin made visible by her skirt riding up, and they salvage the evening watching The Princess Bride.
*
After that, they still do date other people occasionally. Sometimes it isn't as awful as those first few relationships were. But in the end, their closest bond remains with each other, and when it comes time to apply for college, they can both be found in Rachel's kitchen in early August, applying to the same art schools and squabbling over who has better audition tapes. It's a lazy fight at this point, because neither of them have the energy to argue for real in the late summer heat. Rachel keeps brushing Kurt's calf with her bare foot.
While the ink is drying on Rachel's pristine second draft applications, they go upstairs and sit in front of her fan. They talk about boys and girls and where they're going to be in ten years. They talk about the awful and tiny New York apartment that they'll live in while they're trying to break into the business. They've decided to share it without ever quite discussing the fact, or discussing what their friendship will be when they're far away from the people they use as buffers.
"When we get our acceptances from Julliard," Kurt declares, throwing an arm around Rachel's shoulders, an action he knows she finds annoying because Finn used to do it all the time, "then I get to give you a makeover."
Rachel swats at him. "I'd rather be chosen for roles based on my talent than on my looks, Kurt. And you've given me four makeovers since sophomore year."
"They never stick," he says, shaking his head sadly. "If you'd just let me burn the most offensive sweaters --"
She shuts him up with a kiss.
(That's something else they still don't talk about.)
*
"I dare you," Rachel says breathlessly, pulling Kurt down on top of her onto her bed. Their apartment is tiny and dim and not in the best part of town (although not in the worst either; Burt insisted on making sure of that). But it's theirs, they're in New York, and they're going to be stars. This is real.
"How long have you been saving that one?" Kurt says, rolling his eyes and putting his hand up Rachel's shirt. She shivers as he traces patterns on her stomach.
"I consider that Truth or Dare game formative to our... relationship," she answers, "and I thought that the reference would be appropriate."
"You do realize that this isn't some sort of ridiculous sitcom, don't you?" he asks later, when they're lying there breathless and half-clothed. He's still not sure if he feels betrayed by his body for its response to hers, or just confused again.
"This is what Will and Grace would be if they'd debuted on Showtime," she says, very seriously, but she actually laughs when he pushes her off the bed.
And then she gets up and throws her pillow in his face, which cannot stand. They (mostly) play-fight until someone bangs on the wall from an adjacent apartment, yelling something unintelligible about the noise.
*
They have a fight about when to come out. Actually, several fights. Rachel accuses Kurt of not valuing her, Kurt accuses Rachel of chasing after him because he's nice to her, and they throw barbs at each other like they used to before arguing became foreplay, not caring how much they hurt each other. They spend the week before Thanksgiving not talking to one another, which is incredibly hard in their small apartment. The anger seems to fog up the air and make it difficult to breathe.
"I'm gay, Rachel!" Kurt explodes finally, after he's sat there and watched her scrub pointedly at the dishes for twenty minutes on the Tuesday before the holiday (they're leaving for Lima tomorrow). She can even make chores sound angry. She turns around, opening her mouth to retort, but she spends a second drying her hands on an offensively ugly dishtowel and he barrels on.
"I've known that I was gay ever since I could remember. I got thrown in dumpsters and I went through hell just to be myself. I'm proud of it. I'm Kurt Hummel and I like boys. But then there's you. And you're not a guy, not at all, and how can I go back to my dad and say that I'm dating my stepbrother's ex-girlfriend? I can't stand the disappointment in his eyes. He's been so good about being supportive, and now if -- if we don't last, and I go back to dating boys, then he'll always have that thought, that he could have had a normal son --"
"Kurt!" Rachel interjects finally, folding the wet dishtowel and placing it back on the countertop. "Burt Hummel is not one of my fathers, but even I know better than that from casual observation during my visits. Your dad may be confused, but he'll support you, whoever you date. And sexuality is complicated. I respect that you're gay. Don't even straight people talk about having exceptions? Even before I realized I was bisexual, I used to say that I'd be with Eden Espinosa if I got the chance."
Kurt blinks.
"I can't decide if it's worse because you're a girl, or because you're you," he says dryly, but there's little venom in it.
"I'll pretend I didn't hear that," she answers, and she throws the dishtowel at him. He dodges, because he doesn't want to think about dry-cleaning this shirt, especially since he can't really afford it. It's not cheap to live in New York, and his dad had to buy his plane ticket so he could come back for the holiday.
"I'm me and you like it," she says, tossing her head and leaving the rest of the dishes in the sink as she disappears off to the bedroom.
Kurt follows.
*
Kurt comes back to his father's house on Friday afternoon laden with bags, because if he doesn't have that much money to spend, he's certainly not going to waste an opportunity at a Black Friday sale. Finn has staggered into the kitchen and is nursing coffee; he probably hasn't been up for more than an hour. Carole and Burt are in the living room watching some kind of made-for-TV movie, and as Kurt takes his stuff downstairs, he thinks that this is probably his best opportunity to tell them about Rachel. He sets the bags down in a room unchanged since he left, and he sits down on the bed a moment, steeling himself.
When he goes back upstairs, Finn has claimed a spot in his father's battered armchair, the only furniture they still have from Carole's house. It doesn't match the rest of the living room set, but Kurt doesn't have it in himself to protest. Finn is texting with someone and occasionally glancing up at the screen. Kurt perches on the edge of the couch that his dad and Carole are sharing, crossing his legs somewhat nervously. No one seems to notice his tension, and he spends a few moments staring at the television, not seeing the picture, trying to figure out how to begin.
Finally, with a mental scowl at Rachel, he says, "The actress in this is really pretty."
Burt shifts a little, comfortable with his arm around Carole, and Carole says, "Isn't she lovely? She was a coma victim on General Hospital recently but she can actually act."
Kurt coughs. Awkwardly, he continues, "I don't usually notice women, but I suppose everyone has their exceptions."
Finn glances up from his texting, looking momentarily confused, and then he brightens. "Yeah. Like, a celebrity you'd do, even if it was gay? Mine is James Bond."
Kurt opens his mouth to explain that James Bond is a character, not a person, but Burt speaks first, and Kurt's throat closes up a little.
"Are we talking Pierce Brosnan or Daniel Craig?" He leans forward a little with interest.
"Daniel Craig, definitely," Finn answers, and Burt shakes his head.
"You don't know good Bond, kid," he says. "Brosnan is much better. Or Connery, when he was young."
Kurt thinks that Sean Connery has got to be eighty or something, and is glad for his father's clarification. And then he realizes that he's just thought about his dad having sex, and he has to swallow his shudder.
"Dude, but Daniel Craig had that scene with his girlfriend in the elevator," Finn argues. "Plus, Pierce Brosnan is ancient. And he can't sing."
They all pause to stare at him. "What?" he continues defensively. "Rachel made me watch that awful Mamma Mia movie with her."
"Salma Hayek," Carole says.
"Huh?" Burt asks.
"We're talking about exceptions, right?" she says. "I'd be with Salma Hayek. She's such a sweetheart, and so pretty."
"Mom!" Finn whines. Carole just laughs. Burt squeezes his wife's shoulder.
"If she ever shows up, she's all yours," he says solemnly. But then he turns back to Finn. "Anyway, it doesn't matter if Brosnan can't sing."
Kurt cannot take another moment of this conversation, and is secretly kicking himself for starting it.
"Mine," he says hoarsely, "is Rachel Berry." His heart is pounding as he waits for their reactions.
"But she's not famous!" Finn protests. "Right? She didn't get on Broadway yet, did she?"
Kurt buries his face in his hands.
*
Kurt has to go pour himself two cups of coffee before he gets everyone sorted out. He's not much of a coffee drinker normally, and he thinks it might actually make things worse. He feels pretty shaky by the time they're done.
Burt is accepting, as always. He asks a few questions about the nature of the situation, making sure that Kurt hasn't stolen his trucker hats again to chase modern masculinity, but finally he shrugs and says that as long as Kurt is happy, he's okay.
Carole is a little bewildered, but she wishes him well, although she remembers Rachel being particularly high-maintenance, and privately thinks it won't last long.
Finn is, of course, the hard one. He tells Kurt that he's broken the Bro Code by dating his ex-girlfriend, and Kurt reminds him that Rachel had also been Puck's girlfriend, and Quinn had gone on to date Puck, and the Glee Club was so incestuous (in a manner of speaking) that he can't think of anyone who hadn't broken said code.
And then he doesn't understand how Kurt can still be gay. Rachel is a girl -- Finn is certain of this. He has proof. (So does Kurt, but he doesn't really want to go into that.) So Kurt is a boy, and dating a girl, unless one of them has that problem that he saw on Maury where they're the opposite sex inside their mind. Kurt assures him that this isn't the case, but then Finn can't get past the apparent heterosexuality of it.
And then Rachel shows up, and where she got pamphlets for this discussion, Kurt isn't going to ask. He just thrusts them into Finn's hands and drags Rachel back out into the November cold.
"I tried to educate Finn when we were dating, since I knew he would be interacting significantly with my fathers, but he likes things to fit neatly into boxes. Like sports scores," Rachel says on their drive to the movie theater. There might be a crowd, since it is Friday night, but Kurt feels the need to be somewhere that his family is not. The ticket seller leans toward Kurt expectantly when they buy tickets, and when Rachel pays, he gives Kurt a particular condescending look. Kurt scowls back. Just because he's dating a girl, it doesn't mean he's going to go along with all of those societal expectations. He and Rachel split the costs for their dates, food, rent, and whatever else. They agreed on that long ago.
It's still weird to him to be able to hold her hand in public and not get any second glances -- at least, until they run into Puck and have an extremely painful five-minute conversation during which Puck congratulates Kurt on finding his heterosexuality three times. Rachel hands him a pamphlet, which he shoves into his pocket, and finally they escape by claiming that their movie starts ten minutes earlier than it does.
When the lights dim and the previews start, Rachel leans on Kurt's arm, and he pulls away a little.
"This isn't easy on me either," she mutters; "bisexuals who end up in heterosexual relationships are often rejected or marginalized by the queer community --"
They have a whispered argument until an usher has to intervene. Rather than sitting through the film, letting the fight fester and the comebacks build, they forfeit their tickets and drive over to Rachel's house to have an argument in the car in front of her house, fogging up the windows with their frustrations.
They both feel better afterward, and that's the important part.
*
The end result of that conversation is that when they go back to New York, they both get more involved in the GBLT community, throwing themselves into it with an enthusiasm that would frighten anyone who didn't know their obsessive tendencies. They audition for productions at Theater Askew, New York's queer theatre, and they join and swiftly take over their university's gay-straight alliance. They correct anyone who calls them allies, and Kurt even lets Rachel hand out her pamphlets sometimes.
There are awkward moments, like the time that Rachel is hit on by a very persistent lesbian, until she points out her boyfriend and receives a scathing bi-phobic lecture about her place in the feminist community. It takes three people to pull Rachel off, probably because Kurt just applauds when he notices.
There are also a significant number of people willing to believe that Kurt is a trans man, sometimes going so far as to ask who did his surgeries. This isn't so much offensive as it is mind-boggling. They talk about it later, Rachel going on and on about stereotypes and the appearance of queerness and assumptions, the way that people figure that they wouldn't bother fighting for the legalization of same-sex marriage if they weren't affected by the cause.
"And we are!" she declares righteously. "My fathers have been together for almost 30 years, and they still aren't married in the eyes of the law. And if -- " She pauses, and looks at Kurt. He's paying attention but is having much more fun letting her conduct the argument by herself. "If we ever break up and decide to marry same-sex partners, we'd have the same hurdle."
For a moment, Kurt entertains the idea of actually marrying Rachel. She'd be Bridezilla for sure. (He'd probably be just as bad, if he is honest with himself.) They'd have to have a really solid relationship to survive the planning process, and then something would probably go disastrously wrong during the ceremony. They could do an amazing duet, though.
So maybe in a few years, when they might survive it.
"I don't care what people think about us," he says, which isn't entirely true, but it might be someday, when he's gotten a chance to replace her whole wardrobe.
She smiles, and he smiles back, just a little, and that's close enough for now.
Fandom: Glee
Length: 5013 words
Prompt:
glee_fluff_meme: Between Kurt still identifying as gay, Rachel being bi, and both of them immersed in gay culture through Rachel's dads, their love of theater, etc, Kurt Hummel and Rachel Berry may just have the queerest heterosexual relationship in the history of the world. [...]Pairing: Kurt/Rachel; past canon pairings mentioned along with Blaine/Kurt and Rachel/Quinn
Other: GBLT themes including some slight biphobia, homophobia, community issues, etc etc. PG for this and sexuality.
Summary/Excerpt: Kurt and Rachel have the gayest straight relationship ever. The first time they kiss, it's on a dare, because this is high school, and Rachel Berry has never had a captive audience to play Truth or Dare with.
The first time they kiss, it's on a dare, because this is high school, and Rachel Berry has never had a captive audience to play Truth or Dare with.
It's barely a peck at first, until Kurt lunges forward dangerously, figuring that he might as well go for broke, might as well try to figure out exactly what Finn sees in Rachel, even though he's sure he'll never understand it. She tastes like Santana's lipgloss (because they are teenagers, and not particularly creative with their dares), and she's a wet kisser. When they spring apart, heartbeats later, they wipe their mouths with identical disgusted gestures. Kurt adjusts his collar fussily, trying desperately not to think about how Rachel gave him the best kiss he's ever received.
"Dude," Puck says, "that's still the gayest shit I've ever seen." Finn nods a little, and then stops himself hurriedly.
"Puck!" Kurt snaps, at the same time that Rachel says, "Noah!"
He lets her give the lecture about using the word 'gay' in a derogatory manner, because he's still a little shell-shocked about how much he enjoyed that kiss.
*
Three months later, Rachel comes out as bisexual in front of the Glee Club by singing Diana Ross's "I'm Coming Out." Kurt is not impressed with her song selection, or her rendition. He'd secretly planned to sing it himself for one of Mr. Schuester's theme weeks, and now it would just feel like he was trying to show her up. Which he could, but he'd been making an effort to be less actively mean to her, in hopes that he would be able to stop thinking about that kiss they shared.
She ends her performance with a passionate confession that she can't quit thinking about Quinn, and that she may have started chasing Finn because she wanted to have his girl, not because she wanted to have him. Finn scowls at this, and Kurt shoots him his fiercest glare, because there is absolutely no reason to complicate this any further.
"Could you have possibly missed the fact that I hate you more than anyone else in this room, including Santana?" Quinn says, wearing a distasteful expression.
"I, I thought maybe that you were acting out in fear of your true feelings, due to the conflict of your religious beliefs," Rachel answers uncertainly.
Kurt glances around the room. Puck is clearly picturing his baby mama getting with his ex-girlfriend, judging from the glazed look in his eyes. Finn is still scowling. Sam looks confused. The rest of them look like they've gotten to the interesting part of a soap opera. He's almost surprised that someone hasn't produced popcorn. Even Mr. Schuester seems too shocked to interfere with what promises to be a gigantic blow-up, but Kurt isn't surprised by that at all.
He sighs and stands up, and he's just loud enough that attention shifts to him. Good. He crosses his arms and rolls his eyes.
"As difficult as it is to admit, I think this may be the time to reconsider your GayLesbAll idea, Rachel. I absolutely refuse to let you design the posters or name the club, however."
Rachel swallows and wipes quickly at her watery eyes. "We could call it Both Directions!" she suggests brightly.
"Absolutely not," Kurt says.
He picks his way down off the risers, nods at Mr. Schuester, and says, "We're taking a personal day. I'll do my assignment tomorrow." Mr. Schue barely nods in response, but Kurt has already turned away and taken Rachel's hand, wrapping it firmly around his bicep and pulling her out of the room. She hesitates at the door, mumbling something about her backpack, and Kurt has left his too, but he doesn't hesitate.
"I'll text Mercedes and ask her to bring our stuff over after practice," he says after the door shuts, and they're fast-walking away from the awkward silence of the choir room. Rachel's hand tightens on his arm.
"You didn't have to do that, you know," she says, and she's half-jogging to keep up with him; her legs are so short. He slows down a little. He can just barely hear Mercedes rip into the number she's prepared for the day, which means that the rest of Glee Club has moved on for at least the moment. No one is going to be chasing them.
"Yes, I did," he says shortly. He thinks about saying something else, but he doesn't. There's time, later, to explain to Finn that he didn't make Rachel gay, and to explain to everyone what bisexuality is, and how Rachel's fathers being gay didn't cause it, and to bully them into joining Both Directions (what a stupid name; Kurt fully intends to call it something like Pride instead).
He takes her back to his house, and Burt blinks but doesn't ask when Kurt drags Rachel downstairs with him. He looks like he's curious -- Kurt has never been quiet about his dislike for Rachel, and Kurt has certainly never mentioned the kiss. She hasn't been to the house in several months, since she and Finn broke up. Kurt lifts his eyebrows as he pulls Rachel through the kitchen by the hand, hoping that his father understands it as a promise to explain everything later.
"Nice to see you again, Mr. Hummel," Rachel manages before they hit the basement stairs and Kurt finally lets go of her hand. His palm is sweaty and he just isn't good with physical affection, or whatever this is. He wipes his palm on the wall, because the paint will suffer less than his nice slacks, and he pauses uncertainly in the middle of the room for a moment. He and Mercedes usually just hang out on the bed, but that would be weird with Rachel. Finally he decides to sit on his vanity seat, and he gestures her towards his bed.
She sits down, still looking a little confused. "I can't believe I did that," she says after a moment. "Quinn --"
"Rachel," Kurt says, and he is trying to be as kind as possible; she seems to realize this and lets him interrupt. "Life isn't a fairytale. The underdog doesn't date the quarterback. Or the head cheerleader."
Rachel opens her mouth, but Kurt continues. "You're the star of your own life, but you have to make it your life, not just base it on some story you've heard someone sing."
This was a somewhat difficult revelation for Kurt a year ago. He transferred to the perfect school, found the perfect boyfriend, and as far as he was concerned, they were well on their way to being elected prom kings, when the whole thing came tumbling messily down. He neglected to let Blaine be a person besides the perfect boyfriend and wise older mentor, and finally Blaine became tired of it. And now Kurt was back at McKinley, since someone (probably Sue, but he never dared to ask) found enough clout to kick Karofsky out. The worst of the bullying was gone, but he still had to deal with jerks every day, and probably it would get worse if this GayLesbAll idea got off the ground.
Rachel lets Kurt work on her cuticles while she bemoans heteronormativity, homophobia, and the fact that her no-longer-secret crush really does hate her guts. He only half-listens, focused on the pretty hands he's repairing.
"It was very brave of you to come out," he interrupts her, once, and she smiles.
*
It's probably cliche for Rachel and Kurt to become something like best friends afterwards, but they do anyway. Mercedes drifts back into Quinn's orbit, and Kurt can't figure out how to explain to her that he can't follow. Rachel needs someone, and apparently that someone is him. He can't take Quinn's side here.
They found the gay-straight alliance and call it McKinley Pride. Ms. Pillsbury-Howell agrees to be their faculty sponsor. Figgins protests, and so do some of the conservative parents, but after Rachel talks loudly enough about her connections to the ACLU, and Burt spends some time in Figgins's office, he reluctantly agrees. Their glittery posters are systematically destroyed by non-Glee football players and cheerleaders, but most of New Directions shows up for the first meeting, and a couple other kids too. Kurt and Rachel are co-presidents who spend all week arguing loudly about what they want to do for the meeting this week, but by the time they walk into the classroom each week, they have a plan.
They have trouble agreeing on a lot of things, so they try to focus on the things they do both appreciate: they have a similar taste in boys, watch every Broadway show recording they can find, and they both want to get out of Lima as soon as possible. The next time that the Sound of Music Sing-Along is in town, they go. About halfway through "My Favorite Things," Rachel takes Kurt's hand on the armrest. Although Kurt enjoys the film, he can't help but feel like a ridiculous heterosexual boy, hyper-aware of Rachel's fingers on his.
He doesn't think she understands what she's doing until he drops her off at her house later that night. She hesitates with her hand on the car door, and then leans across and kisses Kurt firmly on the mouth.
"What is this?" Kurt sputters. Rachel's eyes are bright in the dark.
"I promise that I don't fall in love with every person who's nice to me," she says, all in a rush, and he's silent, because he doesn't want to admit that he was entertaining the thought. (That still doesn't explain what is wrong with him right now, though.)
"I hope not," he says after a moment. "Because I'm gay, Rachel. And you're not a boy."
"That's one of the nicest things someone has ever said to me," she says, and her shoulders shake, and before he can talk himself out of it, he's clambered over the space between their seats, and letting her cry on a very nice designer jacket that will now need dry-cleaning. He presses her head into his chest, and strokes her hair, wondering when it was exactly that he was replaced by his evil double, and how he hadn't noticed.
"I realize that this isn't helping my case," Rachel mumbles into his chest.
"Not at all," he says, but they sit there uncomfortably for a few more minutes while Rachel collects herself. He waits for her to open the front door and go inside before he drives away.
*
Somehow they get into the habit of kissing each other goodnight, although only if no one else is around, because they've both agreed without saying that letting other people know would just needlessly complicate things. After all, they still fight like angry housecats, even if they do usually find a place to agree after all the shouting.
But they are definitely not dating, and Kurt refuses to be jealous when Rachel gets a date with a girl she met at her ballet class. He helps her pick out a dress that isn't utterly eye-burning to wear, and insists that she find time to give him text updates. He spends the night not really watching a bad action movie with Finn on cable and checking his phone every two minutes.
During a small interval between explosions, which probably contains the plot, Finn turns to Kurt and wrinkles his nose. "Are you dating Blaine again?" he asks.
"What?" Kurt squawks, wincing inwardly at the way his voice goes too high.
"You never text anyone else that much. Not even Mercedes," Finn says. His brow furrows. "This time I really do think he's trying to psych out the competition.
"No! Absolutely not! I'm just --"
Unwilling to admit that he's waiting for Rachel's status updates, he shoves the phone in his pocket and somehow manages to resist checking it until he feels it vibrate against his leg. He goes to the bathroom and opens his text inbox.
new message from "Rachel" 3/9/12 7:09PM
She doesn't like musicals.
He stares at it from a long moment, and refuses to acknowledge the weird relief that's creeping up inside him.
new message from "Kurt" 3/9/12 7:15PM
that bad, huh?
new message from "Kurt" 3/9/12 7:16PM
you could come rescue me from bad action movies
He waits for an answer, ignoring it when Finn calls from the living room. "You okay in there?" Kurt is not. He's mad at himself for reacting this way, and more than a little confused. A year ago, he hated Rachel and would just as soon throw her to wolves as rescue her from a bad date. In fact, he'd probably encourage the wolves to rip up her awful skirts.
It's one thing for a relationship to change over the course of a year. It's another thing when Kurt isn't quite sure where it's going.
new message from "Rachel" 3/9/12 7:20PM
I don't want to ditch. That's rude.
new message from "Rachel" 3/9/12 7:21PM
But there is no romance in her heart.
Kurt snickers and lets himself out of the bathroom. When Rachel arrives, twenty minutes later, he drags her downstairs, pointedly ignoring Finn's mouthed, "Her?" She recounts the failed evening in her usual theatrical manner, falling back against his bed and throwing her arm over her eyes.
Kurt resists the urge to brush the pale skin made visible by her skirt riding up, and they salvage the evening watching The Princess Bride.
*
After that, they still do date other people occasionally. Sometimes it isn't as awful as those first few relationships were. But in the end, their closest bond remains with each other, and when it comes time to apply for college, they can both be found in Rachel's kitchen in early August, applying to the same art schools and squabbling over who has better audition tapes. It's a lazy fight at this point, because neither of them have the energy to argue for real in the late summer heat. Rachel keeps brushing Kurt's calf with her bare foot.
While the ink is drying on Rachel's pristine second draft applications, they go upstairs and sit in front of her fan. They talk about boys and girls and where they're going to be in ten years. They talk about the awful and tiny New York apartment that they'll live in while they're trying to break into the business. They've decided to share it without ever quite discussing the fact, or discussing what their friendship will be when they're far away from the people they use as buffers.
"When we get our acceptances from Julliard," Kurt declares, throwing an arm around Rachel's shoulders, an action he knows she finds annoying because Finn used to do it all the time, "then I get to give you a makeover."
Rachel swats at him. "I'd rather be chosen for roles based on my talent than on my looks, Kurt. And you've given me four makeovers since sophomore year."
"They never stick," he says, shaking his head sadly. "If you'd just let me burn the most offensive sweaters --"
She shuts him up with a kiss.
(That's something else they still don't talk about.)
*
"I dare you," Rachel says breathlessly, pulling Kurt down on top of her onto her bed. Their apartment is tiny and dim and not in the best part of town (although not in the worst either; Burt insisted on making sure of that). But it's theirs, they're in New York, and they're going to be stars. This is real.
"How long have you been saving that one?" Kurt says, rolling his eyes and putting his hand up Rachel's shirt. She shivers as he traces patterns on her stomach.
"I consider that Truth or Dare game formative to our... relationship," she answers, "and I thought that the reference would be appropriate."
"You do realize that this isn't some sort of ridiculous sitcom, don't you?" he asks later, when they're lying there breathless and half-clothed. He's still not sure if he feels betrayed by his body for its response to hers, or just confused again.
"This is what Will and Grace would be if they'd debuted on Showtime," she says, very seriously, but she actually laughs when he pushes her off the bed.
And then she gets up and throws her pillow in his face, which cannot stand. They (mostly) play-fight until someone bangs on the wall from an adjacent apartment, yelling something unintelligible about the noise.
*
They have a fight about when to come out. Actually, several fights. Rachel accuses Kurt of not valuing her, Kurt accuses Rachel of chasing after him because he's nice to her, and they throw barbs at each other like they used to before arguing became foreplay, not caring how much they hurt each other. They spend the week before Thanksgiving not talking to one another, which is incredibly hard in their small apartment. The anger seems to fog up the air and make it difficult to breathe.
"I'm gay, Rachel!" Kurt explodes finally, after he's sat there and watched her scrub pointedly at the dishes for twenty minutes on the Tuesday before the holiday (they're leaving for Lima tomorrow). She can even make chores sound angry. She turns around, opening her mouth to retort, but she spends a second drying her hands on an offensively ugly dishtowel and he barrels on.
"I've known that I was gay ever since I could remember. I got thrown in dumpsters and I went through hell just to be myself. I'm proud of it. I'm Kurt Hummel and I like boys. But then there's you. And you're not a guy, not at all, and how can I go back to my dad and say that I'm dating my stepbrother's ex-girlfriend? I can't stand the disappointment in his eyes. He's been so good about being supportive, and now if -- if we don't last, and I go back to dating boys, then he'll always have that thought, that he could have had a normal son --"
"Kurt!" Rachel interjects finally, folding the wet dishtowel and placing it back on the countertop. "Burt Hummel is not one of my fathers, but even I know better than that from casual observation during my visits. Your dad may be confused, but he'll support you, whoever you date. And sexuality is complicated. I respect that you're gay. Don't even straight people talk about having exceptions? Even before I realized I was bisexual, I used to say that I'd be with Eden Espinosa if I got the chance."
Kurt blinks.
"I can't decide if it's worse because you're a girl, or because you're you," he says dryly, but there's little venom in it.
"I'll pretend I didn't hear that," she answers, and she throws the dishtowel at him. He dodges, because he doesn't want to think about dry-cleaning this shirt, especially since he can't really afford it. It's not cheap to live in New York, and his dad had to buy his plane ticket so he could come back for the holiday.
"I'm me and you like it," she says, tossing her head and leaving the rest of the dishes in the sink as she disappears off to the bedroom.
Kurt follows.
*
Kurt comes back to his father's house on Friday afternoon laden with bags, because if he doesn't have that much money to spend, he's certainly not going to waste an opportunity at a Black Friday sale. Finn has staggered into the kitchen and is nursing coffee; he probably hasn't been up for more than an hour. Carole and Burt are in the living room watching some kind of made-for-TV movie, and as Kurt takes his stuff downstairs, he thinks that this is probably his best opportunity to tell them about Rachel. He sets the bags down in a room unchanged since he left, and he sits down on the bed a moment, steeling himself.
When he goes back upstairs, Finn has claimed a spot in his father's battered armchair, the only furniture they still have from Carole's house. It doesn't match the rest of the living room set, but Kurt doesn't have it in himself to protest. Finn is texting with someone and occasionally glancing up at the screen. Kurt perches on the edge of the couch that his dad and Carole are sharing, crossing his legs somewhat nervously. No one seems to notice his tension, and he spends a few moments staring at the television, not seeing the picture, trying to figure out how to begin.
Finally, with a mental scowl at Rachel, he says, "The actress in this is really pretty."
Burt shifts a little, comfortable with his arm around Carole, and Carole says, "Isn't she lovely? She was a coma victim on General Hospital recently but she can actually act."
Kurt coughs. Awkwardly, he continues, "I don't usually notice women, but I suppose everyone has their exceptions."
Finn glances up from his texting, looking momentarily confused, and then he brightens. "Yeah. Like, a celebrity you'd do, even if it was gay? Mine is James Bond."
Kurt opens his mouth to explain that James Bond is a character, not a person, but Burt speaks first, and Kurt's throat closes up a little.
"Are we talking Pierce Brosnan or Daniel Craig?" He leans forward a little with interest.
"Daniel Craig, definitely," Finn answers, and Burt shakes his head.
"You don't know good Bond, kid," he says. "Brosnan is much better. Or Connery, when he was young."
Kurt thinks that Sean Connery has got to be eighty or something, and is glad for his father's clarification. And then he realizes that he's just thought about his dad having sex, and he has to swallow his shudder.
"Dude, but Daniel Craig had that scene with his girlfriend in the elevator," Finn argues. "Plus, Pierce Brosnan is ancient. And he can't sing."
They all pause to stare at him. "What?" he continues defensively. "Rachel made me watch that awful Mamma Mia movie with her."
"Salma Hayek," Carole says.
"Huh?" Burt asks.
"We're talking about exceptions, right?" she says. "I'd be with Salma Hayek. She's such a sweetheart, and so pretty."
"Mom!" Finn whines. Carole just laughs. Burt squeezes his wife's shoulder.
"If she ever shows up, she's all yours," he says solemnly. But then he turns back to Finn. "Anyway, it doesn't matter if Brosnan can't sing."
Kurt cannot take another moment of this conversation, and is secretly kicking himself for starting it.
"Mine," he says hoarsely, "is Rachel Berry." His heart is pounding as he waits for their reactions.
"But she's not famous!" Finn protests. "Right? She didn't get on Broadway yet, did she?"
Kurt buries his face in his hands.
*
Kurt has to go pour himself two cups of coffee before he gets everyone sorted out. He's not much of a coffee drinker normally, and he thinks it might actually make things worse. He feels pretty shaky by the time they're done.
Burt is accepting, as always. He asks a few questions about the nature of the situation, making sure that Kurt hasn't stolen his trucker hats again to chase modern masculinity, but finally he shrugs and says that as long as Kurt is happy, he's okay.
Carole is a little bewildered, but she wishes him well, although she remembers Rachel being particularly high-maintenance, and privately thinks it won't last long.
Finn is, of course, the hard one. He tells Kurt that he's broken the Bro Code by dating his ex-girlfriend, and Kurt reminds him that Rachel had also been Puck's girlfriend, and Quinn had gone on to date Puck, and the Glee Club was so incestuous (in a manner of speaking) that he can't think of anyone who hadn't broken said code.
And then he doesn't understand how Kurt can still be gay. Rachel is a girl -- Finn is certain of this. He has proof. (So does Kurt, but he doesn't really want to go into that.) So Kurt is a boy, and dating a girl, unless one of them has that problem that he saw on Maury where they're the opposite sex inside their mind. Kurt assures him that this isn't the case, but then Finn can't get past the apparent heterosexuality of it.
And then Rachel shows up, and where she got pamphlets for this discussion, Kurt isn't going to ask. He just thrusts them into Finn's hands and drags Rachel back out into the November cold.
"I tried to educate Finn when we were dating, since I knew he would be interacting significantly with my fathers, but he likes things to fit neatly into boxes. Like sports scores," Rachel says on their drive to the movie theater. There might be a crowd, since it is Friday night, but Kurt feels the need to be somewhere that his family is not. The ticket seller leans toward Kurt expectantly when they buy tickets, and when Rachel pays, he gives Kurt a particular condescending look. Kurt scowls back. Just because he's dating a girl, it doesn't mean he's going to go along with all of those societal expectations. He and Rachel split the costs for their dates, food, rent, and whatever else. They agreed on that long ago.
It's still weird to him to be able to hold her hand in public and not get any second glances -- at least, until they run into Puck and have an extremely painful five-minute conversation during which Puck congratulates Kurt on finding his heterosexuality three times. Rachel hands him a pamphlet, which he shoves into his pocket, and finally they escape by claiming that their movie starts ten minutes earlier than it does.
When the lights dim and the previews start, Rachel leans on Kurt's arm, and he pulls away a little.
"This isn't easy on me either," she mutters; "bisexuals who end up in heterosexual relationships are often rejected or marginalized by the queer community --"
They have a whispered argument until an usher has to intervene. Rather than sitting through the film, letting the fight fester and the comebacks build, they forfeit their tickets and drive over to Rachel's house to have an argument in the car in front of her house, fogging up the windows with their frustrations.
They both feel better afterward, and that's the important part.
*
The end result of that conversation is that when they go back to New York, they both get more involved in the GBLT community, throwing themselves into it with an enthusiasm that would frighten anyone who didn't know their obsessive tendencies. They audition for productions at Theater Askew, New York's queer theatre, and they join and swiftly take over their university's gay-straight alliance. They correct anyone who calls them allies, and Kurt even lets Rachel hand out her pamphlets sometimes.
There are awkward moments, like the time that Rachel is hit on by a very persistent lesbian, until she points out her boyfriend and receives a scathing bi-phobic lecture about her place in the feminist community. It takes three people to pull Rachel off, probably because Kurt just applauds when he notices.
There are also a significant number of people willing to believe that Kurt is a trans man, sometimes going so far as to ask who did his surgeries. This isn't so much offensive as it is mind-boggling. They talk about it later, Rachel going on and on about stereotypes and the appearance of queerness and assumptions, the way that people figure that they wouldn't bother fighting for the legalization of same-sex marriage if they weren't affected by the cause.
"And we are!" she declares righteously. "My fathers have been together for almost 30 years, and they still aren't married in the eyes of the law. And if -- " She pauses, and looks at Kurt. He's paying attention but is having much more fun letting her conduct the argument by herself. "If we ever break up and decide to marry same-sex partners, we'd have the same hurdle."
For a moment, Kurt entertains the idea of actually marrying Rachel. She'd be Bridezilla for sure. (He'd probably be just as bad, if he is honest with himself.) They'd have to have a really solid relationship to survive the planning process, and then something would probably go disastrously wrong during the ceremony. They could do an amazing duet, though.
So maybe in a few years, when they might survive it.
"I don't care what people think about us," he says, which isn't entirely true, but it might be someday, when he's gotten a chance to replace her whole wardrobe.
She smiles, and he smiles back, just a little, and that's close enough for now.
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