for the kiss prompt,,, joshneku 13
13: “That was… Interesting?”
Joshua has to respond. Neku's eyes are searching his when he pulls away, blue as the midday sky: an expanse he could fall into, the ocean he struggles to surface from. He didn't expect to be kissed, didn't ask or prepare for it, caught off-guard as much by the spontaneity as the teenaged enthusiasm of it. Warm hands, an open mouth and chapped lips, Joshua's back and head colliding with the wall now responsible for holding him up. He barely had time to get his hackles up noticing all Neku's thoughts had aligned in his direction; until this moment, that served to indicate there was about to be a fist waved in his face. This wasn't what he'd braced for.
He has to respond. Neku's making an embarrassed hum in the back of his throat, thoughts crowding each other with doubt, teenaged enthusiasm meeting teenaged self-consciousness. The bricks behind Joshua are warming to his body temperature, snagging on his shirt like his fingers snag in the folds of Neku's hoodie. Neku looks like something Joshua might like to photograph, framed by sunset and the skyscrapers rising behind him, hair set alight in the headlights of passing cars, his expression a twist of concern.
The hum becomes words, a record-scratch nervous hopscotch of a sentence: "Uhhh, was that—was that okay? How was that, um, for you?"
Was that okay? Joshua runs back over the kiss in his mind. There'd been a paralyzing sweetness coursing from Neku's at the gesture, spilling over into Joshua, numbing and fizzing at once, bubblegum hues and loop-de-loops and the paradoxical weightlessness of free-fall. A electric charge focused wholly on impressing adoration into the softened, vulnerable medium of his psyche, branding him with Neku's fondness. Intoxicating. Dizzying. Impulsive and intrusive.
He'd tasted like mouth.
Joshua touches his lips, confused by how Neku had surged past all his barriers, sure nothing he'd done had warranted it—he'd been talking about the construction of the building he was now propped against, trivia on the city they both cared for, nothing out of the ordinary.
There's a crease drawing itself between Neku's eyebrows, growing longer as his grip loosens on Joshua's shoulders. He still has to respond, and goodness, he doesn't actually want Neku to let go. He wants Neku to hang on, to stand in this alcove with him for the week it'll take to analyze this event correctly, every faucet of the memory, every passerby on the street and hair follicle on Neku's head, every minute observation Joshua plucks from his consciousness. There's a stray hair in front of Joshua's eyes that's bothering Neku more than it's bothering him. He leaves it.
“That was… Interesting?” Joshua tries, lurching towards Neku's retreating touch as if hooked, stepping forward in the same instant Neku steps back, the two of them moving in sync, drawn into motion by the same puppeteer. Nostalgic.
"Interesting?"
Neku's face forecasts several different emotions before settling into bewildered hurt, thoughts swirling into an overcast resignation.
Ah, messed this up already. Good going.
"Yes, Neku," Joshua snaps, confused and wrong-footed, which he never likes to be. "Interesting. So good to hear you can repeat basic words. Maybe we can use those new skills the next time we want to slobber over someone else's face in public? Hmm?"
Worse. Worse. He's made this worse. He holds his ground as the hurt in Neku contorts into anger—
And then fizzles out.
Oh.
Well that's disappointing. He'd been hoping. He's always hoping. It may be his worst trait.
Neku kicks the ground, hands finding his pockets in one smooth, practiced motion, apologetic. He turns away.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "That bad, huh?"
"Like being suckled by a fish."
Neku cringes. Joshua's satisfaction in this is dwarfed by the wailing chasm that has spontaneously torn itself open deep in his chest, the sting of loneliness once more rising as he throws up wall after wall. It's habit. He can't help how he is.
He can't help but think it wasn't so bad to be kissed either, that another jab of whatever Neku had hit him with would suture it shut again. Neku could fix it. Neku had fixed himself, and Neku could fix Joshua, if fixing each other was something people were capable of doing.
He wants to try again, hand on Neku's forearm before he realizes he does, urging him to follow Joshua back to the wall, less for the physical sensation of Neku clumsily placing his mouth and more for the tumbling cascade that came with it. Oh, to get Neku's hands on his wings. He wouldn't still be standing. Not that he would dare have them out with so many people around, but such is the way things go.
This was how it worked, he reminds himself, this is how Neku had done it. One admission and then another, concession and a request.
Joshua opens his mouth, cutting Neku off, and around the lump in his throat and the defensive reflex screaming that this was bad and wrong and dangerous, he tells Neku "this could be the next time, if you want to slobber on my face again."
Incredulity. Neku is awash with it, from his face to his posture to the slack hang of his fingers and the flatlining landscape of his mind. Joshua feels the scream inside him grow, ready to burst, when Neku grasps his elbows, throwing him a lifeline.
"Rephrase that for me."
"No."
They stare each other down. Neku's thumbs press into the soft skin of Joshua's upper arms. He knows it's soft, because Neku is thinking about it, then he's thinking about how it's not as soft as Joshua's lips, and there he goes hoping again.
"Fine," Joshua spits. "Ask to kiss me, fishboy."
Neku laughs. A bloom of fondness tinging his embarrassment like the bleed-out from a gunshot wound, sticky and warm and Joshua's doing.
"Can I kiss you, Josh?" he asks, following up by miming the slack, open mouth gasping of a fish, aimed threateningly in Joshua's direction. What a delight Neku is. What a catch.
"Hee hee, yes sir."
Neku keeps his mouth closed this time, rough lips carefully brushed over Joshua's, the accompanying spillover from Neku's psyche into Joshua's own more a slow, hesitant embrace than the sucker punch from before. Loved. He's loved.
That's sickening, he thinks loud enough he's sure Neku's heard it too.
"You're such a bastard," Neku confirms through his teeth, words slurred from the way he won't move his lips from Joshua's to say it. There's no weight to it, no bite, only more of that heavy, bubbling fondness, knitting shut the rift in Joshua's stupid little awful heart.
Joshua just hums, eyes closed, and lets Neku's affection suffocate any other response he had to give.
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Fic: I’ll Always Belong to You
Klaine Valentine’s Challenge 2023: “Time of My Life” from Dirty Dancing (Day 14 prompt)
Words: ~2400 words
Rating: Teen and Up
Summary: Kurt loves his birthday present from Blaine.
I’m back with more vignettes from my Mormon!Klaine universe for Klaine Valentines 2023! This vignette takes place in the post-mission-conference arc, between dinner with the lesbians and Blaine coming out to Kurt. I’ve decided Lead, Kindly Light takes place on Kurt’s birthday, so it’s directly after/the evening of that fic.
My Mormon!Klaine Masterpost. (Klaine Valentines 2023 posts are bold and italicized.)
Notes:
Thanks to @redheadgleek, @flower29power, and @gaazhagens for Sound of Music help
Play list of a few German Sound of Music songs/scenes
German movie lyrics to Do-Re-Mi
PDF lyrics to “Ich bleibe dein immerzu” (German movie version of “Something Good”)
Other links are in the text
Other notes in tags
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“Have you enjoyed your birthday so far?” Blaine asked as they entered the apartment.
“Are you kidding? I’ve had the time of my life!” Kurt set his bag down on the floor and bounded over to the loveseat, flopping onto it with complete abandon, his arms draped over one end, his feet dangling off the other. “Allgäu, cows, the investigators cancelling their appointment—”
“You're really not disappointed about that at all, are you?” Blaine asked as he took off his shoes. He wasn't disappointed that Kurt wasn't disappointed; actually, it rather pleased him. Through most of their companionship, Kurt had been such a workaholic and an absolute stickler for the rules. But tonight, instead of insisting that they knock on doors to make up for some high schoolers canceling on them, he let Blaine treat him to dinner before watching the sunset on the Danube. It had felt, at least to Blaine, almost like a date.
“Nope,” Kurt said. “They just want to research us for their religion class, anyway. And if they did want to join the church, they’re too young to do that without parental approval. How many Bavarian parents are going to be like, ‘Sure, kid, screw the Catholic Church. Go join the Mormons’?”
“How many Bavarian parents actually care that much about the Catholic Church?” He lifted Kurt’s legs like a tollgate to join his companion on the couch, then lowered them across his lap once he was seated.
“Just enough to distrust everything else,” Kurt said without acrimony. He sighed and stretched his arms above his head, wiggling his torso like he was trying to get some kink out of his muscles. “But I suppose it is unusual for me not to feel dejected about a cancellation. Guess I'm officially getting trunky.”
Blaine felt his heart sink in his chest. He hated being reminded that Kurt was leaving soon. All day, he'd managed to pretend that it was never going to happen. Allgäu and the Donau had been paradise, but now Kurt was kicking them out. “You still have a month to go," Blaine said. “Can't afford to be trunky yet.”
Kurt poked Blaine’s thigh with his toe. “I've been such a perfect missionary for twenty-three straight months. All I need to do now is endure to the end. That's what the scriptures say, isn't it? ‘Endure to the end,’ not ‘excel to the end.’”
Blaine chuckled. “That is indeed what they say.”
“I'll do my best not to turn lazy for your sake, though,” Kurt added seriously.
“You don't have to worry about that,” Blaine said. “It's a little known fact, but I actually like spending time with you, whether we're proselytizing or not.” He looked into Kurt's eyes, and Kurt looked into his, studying his face, as if looking for the meaning between the words.
Blaine wanted so desperately for Kurt to find it. Because there was no way Blaine was going to say it out loud. Not when he was so unsure how Kurt would respond. And not on Kurt’s birthday, when everything had been so lovely and perfect and magical. Blaine couldn't risk breaking something so beautiful.
“Your birthday isn't over,” Blaine said. “I didn't manage to secretly bake you a multitiered lemon cake, but I do have something else for you.”
“Oh?” Kurt perked up, clearly curious. “Allgäu, dinner—you don’t think I’ve been spoiled enough?”
“Of course not. Your birthday’s not over yet, is it?” Blaine scooted out from under Kurt’s legs and went into the bedroom to fish his suitcase out from under his bed.
“So that’s where you hide the presents.” Kurt was standing in the doorway, watching Blaine, making absolutely no effort to hide his eagerness to find out what Blaine had in his suitcase. It was adorable.
“That's where I hid this one,” Blaine said, retrieving a small package wrapped in a scenic photo of Kyoto from a magazine in Dani’s recycling pile. It had made Blaine think of Kurt because they’d joked once about going to Japan to visit the train station where a cat was in charge—only Blaine hadn't exactly been joking. He’d meant it. He wanted to meet that cat and, wherever he went, he wanted Kurt to be with him.
Kurt probably didn't even remember that conversation. But that was okay. The photo was beautiful in its own right.
“Oh!” Kurt squealed when Blaine handed the package to him. “I love getting presents.” He dropped onto his bed and examined the square. It was probably obvious to him from the shape that a CD was inside, but he acted like it was the most mysterious object he’d ever held. “Hey! That’s Japan! Is this the place with the cat train conductor that we’re going to visit when you’re done with your mission and I’ve saved anough money to take a jaunt through Asia?”
“That’s Kyoto,” Blaine said, his heart on the verge of exploding. “The cat is in Wakayama. But they’re not too far apart. Maybe a hundred miles? We could definitely visit both of them.”
“How do you know so much about Japan?”
Blaine shrugged. “There might have been a map in that same magazine I pulled the picture from.”
Kurt clucked his tongue. “Elder Anderson, reading unapproved materials. I might have to talk to the mission president about this,” he said in a tone that meant he definitely was not going to talk to the mission president about it.
God help me, Blaine thought. Kurt was so sexy when he feigned disapproval.
Blaine dropped down next to him, the mattress bouncing from the new weight. “So are you going to open it or not? The suspense is killing me.”
“Whose birthday is it?” Kurt said with a smirk. But he did unwrap it. “Meine Lieder, meine Träume,” he read as he revealed the top of the CD cover. “Wait. Is this … Oh my gosh! It is!” Kurt flung his arms around Blaine and hugged the breath out of him.
It was the German soundtrack to The Sound of Music. Blaine had found it in a music store in Munich during the mission conference, and it had immediately struck him as the perfect gift for his companion.
“Is it because this is the musical of my namesake, Kurt von Trapp?” Kurt asked, squeezing Blaine’s arm.
Blaine giggled. He couldn't help it. Kurt was so delightful. Blaine must have sounded like a hopelessly besotted schoolboy. “Partly. But also because I think I've heard you sing almost every single song from the soundtrack in the shower at some point.”
“Of course I have! Because it’s the best musical on earth! It’s got romance, found family, and a half-hour public service announcement against Nazis!” Kurt excitedly opened the liner notes. “And it has a lyrics insert!”
Kurt was a force of nature. He grabbed Blaine's hand and pulled him into the living room. It wasn't long before the CD player was removed from its hiding place and plugged into the wall, and Kurt and Blaine were on the loveseat with the liner notes between them, learning the German lyrics to “The Sound of Music”: Along the valleys sounds the song of mountains, the most beautiful song far from our time.
Of course, they didn’t stay on the loveseat for long. One cannot easily sing with gusto while sitting down (the downstairs apartment was empty, and the living room wall faced outside, so they didn't have to worry about disturbing the neighbors unless they got really loud), and dancing is made easier by standing. They pondered how to confront the problem of Maria, recited their favorite things, and learned entirely new mnemonics for the do-re-mi scale (do was not doe, a female deer, but the first syllable in the name of the Donau River; ray was not a drop of golden sun, but Reh, a hoofed herbivore that lived in high-altitude forests; and ti wasn’t ti at all, but si—what passes in Rome for “yes”).
They sang sometimes, and danced sometimes, and occasionally engaged in friendly arguments about the meaning of the lyrics and whether they were good translations.
Blaine collapsed on the loveseat when the Ländler began. He loved this part of the movie, when little Kurt von Trapp asks Maria to teach him the waltz-like dance and Captain von Trapp steps in to demonstrate. It's the first moment the audience knows for sure that the Captain and Maria are falling in love.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Kurt asked, his eyebrows quirked in challenge.
“Sitting down?”
“For the Ländler? You can’t sit for the Ländler. It has the name of an actual dance in its title.”
"But I don't know the steps," Blaine said.
“But I do,” said Kurt, bowing slightly and holding out one hand. “Elder Anderson, will you do me the honor of this dance?”
“Well, if you put it that way, Elder Hummel.” Blaine felt giddy. He wasn’t a Disney prince—Kurt was. Blaine was Arielle, woozy with infatuation. Still, he managed to stand and return the bow, then slot his hand into Kurt’s.
Kurt rested his free hand on Blaine’s waist and guided him through the dance. Two hops and a turn. Two hops and a turn. Kurt was right. It wasn't that hard—or, rather, Kurt made it easy. He was an expert lead, guiding with gestures and subtle movements, never forcing Blaine’s body into an unexpected pose. Their bodies returned naturally to each other after every separation. And though the space they were in was tiny, Kurt somehow made it feel huge, like they had the entire world under their feet and could dance wherever their hearts led them.
Blaine fell into the dance like he was falling into Kurt, every minute of every day.
The Ländler ended, but they continued dancing in the silence between songs, through the silliness of “So Long, Farewell” and the joy of “Climb Every Mountain,” and Blaine was so caught up in the music and the lyrics and the feeling of being held in Kurt’s arms that he completely forgot what was coming next until it did—the languid love song where Captain von Trapp and Maria finally admit their feelings to each other.
Nun stehst du hier und du sagst „Liebe mich,“ was ich so gerne tu,
So nimm mich und mach du uns glücklich, ich bleibe dein immerzu
(Now you stand here and say, "Love me," which I so gladly do,
So take me and make us happy, I'll always belong to you)
Kurt slowed, but didn’t stop or let Blaine go. His eyes were on Blaine’s, clear and fearless. It was like being serenaded. It was like being loved.
Blaine inched slowly closer, testing the waters, waiting for Kurt to stop him. But Kurt didn’t. And now Blaine’s cheek was on Kurt's shoulder and both of Kurt’s arms were around his waist, and they were slow dancing in the living room, the whole world beyond them nothing but a dream.
Blaine sang along. Ich bleibe dein immerzu. Kurt could choose to understand or not. It wasn't in Blaine’s control.
And then he heard Kurt singing back, felt the vibrations of the words in his scalp as Kurt pressed his cheek pressed against the top of Blaine’s head: Nun stehst du hier und du sagst „Liebe mich,“ was ich so gerne tu. Blaine’s fingers flexed into Kurt’s back. He should say it. Liebe mich, Kurt. Liebe mich. That was the thing, wasn't it? He had told Kurt he loved him so many times that Kurt couldn't hear it for what it was. But if he said, Love me, Kurt, please. I need you to love me in every way you know how—then maybe Kurt would finally understand.
Als du kamst, da war ich selig, so wie du.
So nimm mich und mach du uns glücklich, ich bleibe dein immerzu.
(You are blessed, and when you came into my life, I was, too.
So take me and make us happy, I'll always belong to you.)
The music stopped. Blaine’s heart sped up. But Kurt’s arms were still around him, giving him strength. He could do this. He could say this. He lifted his eyes to Kurt’s, and Kurt was looking back at him as if he already knew.
“Kurt—”
Bang. Bang. Bang. “Elders! It's me, Dani! I heard you come in earlier and I have something for Elder Hummel’s birthday!”
“You told her about my birthday?” Kurt said incredulously. His arms were still on Blaine’s waist, but he had stepped back, his chest no longer warming Blaine’s.
Blaine bit his bottom lip to keep from swearing. “When I told her we were going to Allgäu. I didn’t think she’d do something about it.”
Kurt smiled softly. “It’s okay. I am the one who said I like presents.” And with that, he halfway across the room. “Coming, Dani!”
Kurt swung the door open. Dani stood there with a plate of cupcakes in one hand, her girlfriend at her shoulder, and Stürmchen at her ankles. “They’re chocolate. We were going to try something really fancy like Black Forest cake, but then I remembered you guys don't drink alcohol, and I wasn't sure if the kirsch counted. So just plain chocolate with chocolate frosting. We taste-tested a few and can guarantee that they are not terrible. But if you think they are, just throw them away, don't let Stürmchen eat any. Her birthday gift to you is her presence. You can have her overnight if you like. I know how much it kills you not to be able to have your own cat. Besides, the last couple nights she's been trying to sleep on top of my head and it drives me crazy.”
Stürmchen was already inside the apartment, rubbing herself all over Kurt’s ankles. Blaine found himself feeling jealous of the cat.
He took a deep breath. This was for the best. Today was Kurt’s day, not his. It wasn’t Blaine’s place to ask him for anything. It was a time to celebrate Kurt, and love him as much as Kurt would allow.
If Kurt wanted more, he would let Blaine know.
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