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wowbright · 1 day ago

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Chapter 20: Picture, Part 1

Figureskating!Blaine/designer!Kurt Olympics AU for december klaine fanworks challenge. Also on AO3.

Kurt drifted off after their second go-round of the morning. He was so magnetic, even in his sleep—his hair love-mussed, his bare arms stretched across Blaine, the sheets so low on his hips Blaine could see the top of the slanted line where the muscles of abdomen and thigh came together.

Kurt would be hungry when he woke up. Blaine’s own appetite was starting to kick into gear, a sign that it was finally starting to acclimate to the new time zone—or maybe just that he had expended a lot of energy during their lovemaking. He smiled at the thought, kissed Kurt on the forehead (Kurt made a soft murmur in response) and stepped into the shower before putting on the same clothes he’d worn to the hotel the night before.

He decided to stop at the café in the hotel lobby to grab some tea and check his emails before venturing out in search of authentic Caucasus delicacies for Kurt’s breakfast. When he stepped inside, he was surprised to find Sebastian was also there, sipping coffee by the window over a plate of syrniki.

Sebastian didn't see him. He was looking out the window, watching the scenery dreamily. It was strange to see Sebastian still and contemplative. In all the years they had known each other, Blaine had only seen Sebastian slow down like this a handful of times. If Blaine caught Sebastian alone, he was usually on his smartphone—and before those had been a thing, his dumbphone or his PDA or his laptop—making plans and schmoozing the right people to get one step closer toward clinching a deal or achieving some other clearly defined goal.

Blaine was wondering if he should go over and say hello now, or wait until Sebastian had naturally exited his reverie, when a man with fashionably disheveled dirty-blond hair walked right up to Sebastian's table as if he belonged there, pulled out the chair opposite Sebastian, and sat down. Sebastian slowly turned from the window and when he did, it was apparent from the expression on his face that the stranger did, in fact, belong there. Sebastian smiled with a childlike delight Blaine had only observed the few times he’d seen his friend and manager on ecstasy.

The two men began chatting—only from the tones and expressions and the mostly-empty plate with one piece of toast that sat on the stranger’s side of the table that Blaine only now noticed, it became obvious to Blaine that it wasn't a beginning. It was a continuation of a conversation that had started long before. They were laughing about something, and Blaine picked up snippets like “boarding school” and “first” and “vanity” and “America” and then, with less laughter, “picture-perfect life, but it was all in my head.” The man’s accent was English, with ‘r’s that were soft and ‘t’s that caught in the back of his throat, reminiscent of the way Adele or Billie Piper spoke.

Sebastian spoke, too, the English guy watching him with interest. He must have been about their age, or maybe in his mid-thirties, but the contented expression on his pleasantly chiseled face made him look younger. He wore an earthy green henley and, around his neck, something that looked like a dog tag but wasn't quite the right shape.

“You’re building a fire, not inventing it!” The English guy had launched into a Scottish(?) accent with hard ‘r’s and aspirated ‘t’s, and it took a few seconds of watching Sebastian crumple up into giggles before Blaine realized it was an impersonation of Mrs. Hughes from Downton Abbey—Sebastian watched Downton Abbey?—for Blaine to realize he was staring like a total weirdo.

That realization prompted Blaine to walk over and say hello like a normal person. “Hey, Sebastian.”

Sebastian startled and blinked his eyes. “Oh, hey Blaine.” Something about Sebastian’s expression made Blaine feel the way he had the time he walked into the wrong church in Paris and found himself being stared at by a sanctuary full of people confused to find a guy in mustard yellow chinos standing where a bride should be. “I forgot— I mean—” Sebastian cleared his throat. “Adam Crawford, this is Blaine Anderson, the client I mentioned. Blaine, this is Adam. He’s a journalist. He works for … Oh. Did you say?”

Blaine was confused. What kind of breakfast was this? They were talking like old friends, but also this guy was a journalist? No. If this guy was a journalist, that meant this was a business breakfast, and Sebastian was just buttering the guy up, trying to get an interview set up to keep Blaine in the spotlight. Except, if this was a business breakfast, Sebastian was being unusually terrible at business. He should know what venue the guy was from. That was the first thing you asked a journalist, if the journalist didn't tell you first.

The Adam guy laughed as he shook Blaine’s hand. “Maybe not. We’ve had more compelling things to chat about. It’s nice meeting you, Mr. Anderson. Your fame precedes you.”

“—and Blaine, this is Adam. He lives in London, originally from Essex, went to school in New York. Prior to becoming a television presenter for—” Sebastian raised a questioning eyebrow at Adam.

“The BBC,” Adam supplied.

“—he worked on Broadway and off-Broadway and TV and …” Sebastian started to rattle off a bunch of shows and small indie movies Blaine thought he might have heard of but certainly had not seen. It quickly veered off into more discursive speech, which turned into a bout of story swapping between Adam and Sebastian in which their only goal seemed to be to out-delight each other, and ten minutes later Blaine was still standing there without any tea.

He regretted ever coming over here in the first place. But what was he to do? He had to stick around. He was clearly the whole reason Sebastian and Adam were having breakfast in the first place. Blaine pulled up a chair, signaled the waiter, and ordered his tea along with some blini, because if he was going to be stuck here, he needed some sustenance.

“So, you two are setting up an interview? When for? What about? And how long will you need?” Blaine asked when there was finally a pause in the back and forth, well after his plate of blini had already arrived.

They stared at him blankly.

Blaine, confused, barreled onward. “Also, it would be helpful to understand why the BBC wants an interview with an American figure skater when UK Sport barely supports its own and the BBC itself doesn’t broadcast the British or European Figure Skating Championships or even the Worlds anymore.”

Again, that stare. Was Blaine coming on too strong? He had a reputation among reporters for being sweet, and maybe listing the UK’s sins against figure skating didn't come across as sweet. Okay. He’d be more diplomatic.

“You know what? If I can bring more attention to the sport in the UK, I’m all in. Just, please, give more airtime to Matthew Parr than to me. Maybe you could interview the two of us together? We could talk about the differences in support in our respective countries, and what the UK might do to grow competitive figure skating.”

“Oh.” Finally, Adam said something. “Oh! I didn't even think of that. But it would make sense, that I might want to interview you. Because you're a famous Olympic athlete, and I’m here covering the Olympics.”

“You’re not— You’re not …?” Blaine looked at Sebastian for help. He was so confused.

“Oh, Blaine. My sweet summer child. This isn’t a business breakfast. Adam’s staying at the hotel. We met in the lobby.”

The gears turned in Blaine’s brain and something clicked into place and he finally understood why this entire situation was so weird—why he had stared for so long before saying hello, and why he had felt so out of place since making his presence known. This was a date, or whatever Sebastian wanted to call breakfast with a conventionally hot guy he’d recently met in a hotel lobby. Except, Sebastian didn’t do dates. He thought it was too much light courting: old-fashioned, time-consuming, and completely superfluous to the acquisition of sex. And yet, here Sebastian was, eating breakfast and flirting with Mr. Chiseled Face.

“Should I move to another table?” Blaine asked.

Sebastian and Adam both laughed. They insisted he didn't have to. And it would have been just as awkward to move tables as to stay, and rude to the waiter. So he stayed. Besides, it was interesting, watching Sebastian be all smiley and flirty, with no signs of intoxication nor a hint of manipulation. What was the world coming to? Blaine was going to have to tell Kurt about this.

~~~

Blaine forgot all about it by the time he arrived back at the hotel with fresh-baked pogacha, a small jar of local honey, some Circassian cheese, and three kinds of churchkhela for Kurt to sample. He cracked Kurt’s door open to find him still asleep in bed and went back to the suite’s entryway to get the espresso started. He already knew how much his boyfriend(!) loved caffeine, and he figured Kurt would want a double shot at minimum to get started after his travel and their active night. He popped the first pod into the espresso machine.

It made a loud, heinous screech.

Blaine leapt to the bedroom door and grabbed the handle. But the damage had already been done. Kurt turned over in the bed and grumbled, pulling the covers over his face. “Sorry, honey,” Blaine whispered. “I forgot how loud these espresso makers are.”

Kurt lowered the blanket, revealing half-open eyes. “Honey?” The corner of his mouth twitched in suppressed amusement. “I’m your honey now?”

“If you don’t like that, you could be my darling, or my sweetie—” Blaine settled on the edge of the bed, kissing Kurt’s shoulder between each endearment “—or my soltsne, or my milyi, or my lyubimyi.”

“Mmmm,” Kurt sighed and pulled Blaine onto him, squeezing him into a full-body hug. “Is it safe to assume all those Russian ones are complimentary, mon petit chou?”

“As long as you’re okay with sunshine, favorite, and—” Blaine contemplated which translation to go with for lyubimyi, and decided to be daring “—loved one.”

Kurt giggled. “No one's ever called me sunshine before. Especially not when I just woke up.”

“Well, you’re mine, soltsne. Now, let me serve you breakfast in bed.”

Blaine finished making the espresso, then poured in a little milk and heated it in the frother. Not the world's fanciest latte, but it was made with love. He removed the tray from under the espresso maker, set the coffee and the bounty from his morning shopping expedition on it, and brought it to the bed. Kurt devoured the pogacha, tearing the rolls in half and topping them with cheese and drizzles of honey, but he was more hesitant about the churchkhela.

“Are you sure I'm supposed to eat those? They look like candles.”

“Actually, the process for making them is a lot like dipping candles. They string together nuts and then they dip the string in grape juice or mulberry juice that's been cooked down until it's the consistency of caramel, and when they hang it to dry it cools into this. You can pull out the string and break it into little pieces like this—” Blaine demonstrated with the sweet churchkhela made of hazelnuts and white grape juice “—or—” he picked up a string of walnuts coated in sour red grape juice “—bite into it and pull it off the string with your teeth. It’s like—” Blaine had to pause for a moment because he had bitten off a piece and the churchkela was like taffy, sticking in his teeth “—really thick fruit leather.”

“Oh!” said Kurt after trying a bite of the sweet one. “It tastes much better than it looks. Not like wax at all.”

They chewed contentedly, sometimes quiet in the pleasure of being in the same space and sharing something good, sometimes making a small observation that seemed much larger and more significant when it was shared. Later, while Kurt cleaned up and dressed for the day, Blaine read Russian news on his phone and noticed he hadn’t received any new texts from Cooper about Russia's new anti-LGBT law—or with an apology.

When Kurt reemerged from the bathroom, it was with the energy of a whirlwind. “I haven't even shown you yet! I have to show you!” He rifled through his suitcase, pulled out a muslin bag closed by a drawstring, and handed it to Blaine. “For the team event. After you told me about the music, I remembered a particular blue fabric I had in my stash and I was struck with inspiration. I only had time to cut the pieces in New York but not finish it on the machine, so I basted it by hand and did the trimmings on the airplane and in layovers. Be gentle with it when you try it on. I mean, unless you can tell right away that you don't like it. In that case, it doesn't matter what happens to it.”

Blaine’s place in the team event had been secured before they left Colorado Springs. During the meeting Blaine had almost missed because he was too pissed off from the interview with his brother to remember where he was supposed to be (and so naturally had gravitated toward the comfort of the costume room and Kurt), Sam's knee had already started to swell up from his earlier crash. By the next morning, it was the size of a grapefruit half. Even with cortisone shots, there were concerns about the effect on his performance in the team event, which was right at the beginning of the games. That wouldn't just affect Sam, but Mike and Kitty and Mason and Madison and everyone else participating in the team event. Sam himself was worried about the risk of worsening his chances for medaling in men’s singles if he pushed himself instead of letting himself heal up fully. He’d given Blaine his blessing, in his insecure way: “It's smart to save the top figure skater for the singles event, anyway. We don't want me wasting all my energy on the team event when I'm the USA's only chance for gold. With you in the line-up, the team might still get bronze. That's one thing you can say for old geezers. They're dependable enough.”

Blaine had texted the news while Kurt was flying from Colorado Springs to New York: Good news and bad news. Bad news is Sam hurt himself worse than we thought. Good news(?) is that now I'm doing the team event. I don't feel like I earned it, but I want to skate like I did. I haven't talked about this with you—or anyone, really—but the past season or two, I was starting to feel so burned out. I mean, Sam hasn’t been completely wrong when he’s accused me of being old and washed up. That’s how I was acting, and how I was feeling inside. I didn’t really care anymore. And then you showed up, and you cared so much about your own work, and about bringing my vision to life, and I remembered that I had a vision. That there was something I wanted people to feel and experience when they watched me skate, and that there are kids looking up to me who just want to see somebody like them doing something meaningful. I remembered what it felt like to care, and that what I'm doing in Sochi matters. So, thank you for that.

“Oh, Kurt!” Blaine felt the precious weight of the costume as Kurt placed it in his hands. They hadn't talked about Kurt making another costume. Obviously, Blaine couldn’t wear his old one by he-who-must-not-be-named because of the weird contract, and he wouldn't wear one of the others Kurt had made because they were specific to the programs they were designed for. He’d figured he’d wear something off-the-shelf, and had in fact packed several choices for Kurt to give his opinion on. But this—another entire costume from scratch. “You didn't have to do this. But I’m so glad you did. You amaze me, Kurt.”

“You haven't even opened the bag yet, silly,” Kurt teased, but he looked inordinately pleased by Blaine’s reaction. “You need to try it on first to see if I deserve any of your praise.”

The costume was a beautiful azure that reminded Blaine of Kurt’s eyes, and when he put it on, a fine plume of tiny, lightly colored rhinestones trailed up Blaine’s left thigh and up toward the center of his chest where his heart lay, expanding into a fine spray over his shoulders that Blaine knew would look like sparkling dew drops from far away from the stands or a camera lens. He stood in front of the mirror, the winter sunlight streaming in and illuminating the tiny prisms.

“A bluebird reference,” Kurt said, touching his hand to Blaine’s wrist, where the fabric flared out like wingtips. “I mean, I know the version you're skating to has the lyrics taken out because the International Skating Union wants to wait until next season to catch up with the modern world, but this is a way to bring them back. And the rhinestones—obviously I couldn't wrap you up in a big rainbow flag, but—” Kurt guided Blaine to twist toward the window.

“They’re a rainbow!” Blaine gasped as the rhinestones refracted the light into green and purple and red and yellow. The costume was beautiful in its own right, but in the context of the music and his life and Sochi, it transcended mere beauty. It was perfect.

How did Kurt understand him so well? By what magic did he take Blaine’s dreams and longings and express them in something tangible? “We didn't even talk about design ideas, but you understood everything. I …” Blaine felt tears pressing against the back of his eyes. He wanted so intensely to tell Kurt that he loved him, the way he'd wanted to half a dozen times during their lovemaking that morning, when instead he’d bitten his tongue to keep himself from blurting it out in the heat of passion because it must be too soon, because he might be falling in love, but surely he couldn't have arrived there yet.

But Blaine was already there, wasn't he? Had been there since Kurt’s first day at the Olympic Training Center, before they'd even shaken hands. Up until now, he’d thought of his feelings as falling in love, the falling separate from the love itself as journey is from destination. Even when Kurt had confessed his own state of falling the night before, Blaine had interpreted it to mean that Kurt was hurtling toward love, but hadn’t arrived quite yet.

But now, Blaine understood that, at least for him, the journey and the destination were the same thing. He loved Kurt. That love had plenty of room to grow, but it was still love.

“I couldn't have you wearing something off the rack or a costume meant for a different song and a different program,” Kurt said. “It would bring me professional shame. Besides, you inspire me too.”

The moment passed for Blaine to say anything. And maybe that was just as well. Blaine wanted to speak the words in a place and moment where Kurt couldn’t mistake them for misplaced horniness or gratefulness or sentimentality. He wanted Kurt to know that he meant it with his whole heart.

Kurt got out his travel sewing machine. As he sewed over and flattened his basted seams, they discussed whether they should do anything to avoid Sue’s suspicions. They would be riding over together with Sebastian, but that didn't mean they had to enter the skating arena together. Of course, Kurt would need to help Blaine with his costume before he went out, and Sue knew that. So maybe it would be weirder if they appeared separately, an obvious signal that they were trying to fly under the radar.

“Ugh. This is stressing me out just thinking about it,” Blaine said, flopping backward onto the now-made bed—not because housekeeping had been there, but because Kurt was apparently the kind of guy who made his bed every morning even when he didn't have to. “I'm terrible at lying. And sneaking around isn't technically lying, but I can't see how it would be any less stressful than getting Sue’s wrath. I think it would be more stressful. But also, I want you to be comfortable, because I don't think I can be comfortable if you're not comfortable …”

“I'm not really worried about Sue,” Kurt said. “She predicated punching me in the face on so many variables. If I avoid Provincetown, I should be good.”

“She specifically threatened to punch you only in Provincetown?”

“The circumstances were even more specific than that, but—” Kurt waved one hand in the air, dismissing whatever convoluted picture Sue had painted during her threat. “I just don't want to make trouble when you two need to be on the same page.”

“Sue and I are rarely on the same page. That friction is one of our strengths. She sees things I don't and I see things she doesn't. But I promise you, whatever happens, she's not going to punch you in the face. She wouldn’t risk the possible damage to her fingers. Besides, the U.S. Figure Skating banishes members who commit violence on their colleagues. Heck, it even banishes members whose abusive ex-husbands hire someone to commit violence on their colleagues. She’s not stupid.”

“You think my face would damage her fist?”

“The hardest bone in the human body is the jawbone. Hitting it with your bare fist is like trying to smash a marble statue with toothpicks.”

Kurt looked up from his sewing. “You seem to have given this a lot of thought.”

“Well, I do come from a hockey family,” Blaine laughed. “But also, I use to kickbox.”

Kurt peered at Blaine. “Really? Sue was okay with that?”

“Oh, it was way before Sue. I was 13 when I came out to my parents. My dad thought I should learn some self-defense skills.” At least, that's what Blaine’s father had said. At the time, Blaine couldn't also help but feel that his dad hoped getting him involved in something a little more masculine than figure skating might change him. All these years later, it was still difficult to tease out what his father meant from what he said.

Maybe that's why Blaine liked Sue so much. She usually meant what she said, and when she didn't, it was because she was being over the top, exaggerating her feelings instead of trying to hide them.

That thought decided things for Blaine. “We should be ourselves around Sue,” he said. “She’s the one making trouble where trouble doesn't belong. She'll come to see that.”

#wowbright writes fic #december klaine fanworks challenge 2024 #day 16: picture #my klaine advent #klaine fanfiction #Figureskating!Blaine/designer!Kurt Olympics AU #These last chapters are getting longer so posting schedule will probably just be one or two chapters a week.

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