Sideways

Chapter 11

Blaine sighed silently at the loud noises coming from the people he sat with at lunch. He was next to Puck, who was laughing at something Azimio was saying. Karofsky was scowling at him from across the table, which he ignored and everyone was just being unnecessarily loud. Lately, the football team and cheerleaders he sat with were driving him crazy. He wanted to lean across and smack Puck in the head, because he was laughing far too boisterously. He wanted to punch Karofsky again simply because he was a bitch and he wanted to tell that red headed cheerleader—what was her name again?—to stop playing dumb, just so that she could gain attention.

He glanced across the room at the glee table. They were talking quietly, some of them laughing. It was really amazing that the members of the one club that spent all their time singing and dancing and performing were so quiet and refined. Kurt was sitting there, next to Mercedes, smiling slightly, his pale lips upturned at the corners, his luminous eyes glancing up from his lunch as Mercedes spoke. He blinked and his light lashes fluttered slowly down into the hollows beneath his eyes, then back up again.

Blaine liked to watch Kurt when he didn't know he was watching him. He was absently running a thin finger along his jaw line, his elbow rested on the table. He looked like he didn't belong there, amongst the trash cans and the cleaning ladies and the pale, sickly green walls. He stood out a mile sitting there, in his white, long-sleeved shirt and his hair so perfectly styled and his skin so smooth and on the verge of transparency.

The words of the song struck Blaine not for the first time that day.

"I want to take you far from the cynics in this town and kiss you on the mouth."

Regardless of what he knew he did or didn't feel when it came to Kurt, he could concede that Kurt didn't belong here, in this drab, narrow-minded town, full of ignoramuses and uneducated assholes. Kurt had told him that first day that he was going to make something of himself and Blaine believed that now. When it came down to the cold, hard facts, Kurt was better than all of them, even, Blaine had to admit, better than Blaine himself.

Kurt looked up just as Blaine thought this and the feeling that he'd been caught doing something wrong struck him almost instantly, his heart leaping in his chest, mouth parting, eyes widening. But Kurt simply smiled, his glistening eyes lighting up and acknowledging Blaine. Blaine returned his smile, because when Kurt smiled at him, there were only two things he could do that were appropriate as a response. The first of these was to cover that smile with his lips and since they were in a crowded lunch room, not to mention at least fifteen feet apart, Blaine had to go with the second option, which was to smile back.

Kissing Kurt wasn't something he really thought about any more. Actually, that was a lie. He seemed to think about it quite a bit, but he didn't think about it in the sense that it ate away at him, because it was wrong and went against everything that he was. Nowadays, it was just something that was, something he just did, almost daily, because it felt good, even if it didn't make sense.

Kurt looked away, glancing back only once, before turning his attention back to Mercedes.

***

"Hey!"

Blaine almost jumped out of his seat. Quinn slipped onto the bench next to him and followed his gaze, just as Kurt glanced across, then quickly looked away. Quinn's lipglossed smile faded and she was frowning. Then she turned to look at Blaine and a grin replaced her frown.

"Guess what?" she enthused.

"Um, what?" Blaine asked, eyes falling down to study the fries on his tray. He couldn't even begin to guess.

"I'm joining glee club!"

Blaine's entire body went rigid and his head shot up too quickly, his neck twisting and aching instantly.