Here are my final two fills for the Klaine Spring Challenge. (Thank you to those who put on the challenge! It was so fun to participate!)
The first fill is called Tooth Mansion and is written for the word “insidious.” In this story, Blaine has a nightmare and, when he discovers he’s had his childhood nightmare again, he gets Kurt to comfort him. You can find this story on AO3or FF.net.
The second fill is called Rescuing Each Other and is written for the word “protective.” In this story, Kurt is stuck in a treehouse and is, apparently, terrified of heights. Blaine refuses to leave his bestest friend and enlists others to get him help. You can find this story on AO3orFF.net.
Thank you so much to everyone who has read and supported these one-shots as I’ve posted them! I appreciate it so much!
Well, I’m behind on the Klaine Spring Fling words again, but I uploaded two one-shots today anyway.
The first fic is called Love Birds and Unicorns. Jeff is celebrating his birthday in daycare, and he has some really cool birthday surprises to share with everyone, including our favorite boys, who find these surprises something to get excited about! You can read this one-shot on AO3orFF.net.
The second fic is called We’ve Waited Since We Were Young. The boys meet a very special person in their lives, which reminds them of that day in daycare when they got to meet another very special person. This one-shot is also on AO3and FF.net.
Well, I’m behind on the Klaine Spring Fling words again, but I uploaded two one-shots today anyway.
The first fic is called Love Birds and Unicorns. Jeff is celebrating his birthday in daycare, and he has some really cool birthday surprises to share with everyone, including our favorite boys, who find these surprises something to get excited about! You can read this one-shot on AO3orFF.net.
The second fic is called We’ve Waited Since We Were Young. The boys meet a very special person in their lives, which reminds them of that day in daycare when they got to meet another very special person. This one-shot is also on AO3and FF.net.
As there are a couple of stories that aren’t quite finished, I’m giving you an additional word for inspiration.
Bonus Word #1:
CIRCUMSTANCE
Did you miss Klaine Spring Fling the first time but still want to play? Now’s your chance. Klaine Spring Fling 2: Electric Boogaloo is here.
It’s pretty simple. We use the same prompts from the first time and post them every other day starting May 15th until we run out. Write and post whenever you want! Today, we run out! One more left!
To make sure your fic gets reblogged to @todaydreambelievers, please use the tags #klaine spring fling and #spring fling 2: electric boogaloo
“You never cease to surprise me,” said Blaine as they arrived back at the apartment from English group. “Accepting concert tickets from Chandler Kiehl. So …” He searched for the perfect word, but couldn’t land on it. Well, the closest approximation of what he meant would have to do. “Unorthodox.”
“It’s not a big deal,” said Elder Hummel. “We’re allowed to accept gifts from investigators within reason. And it’s classical music, which classifies it as a cultural event. I’m sure President Steele will be fine with us attending.”
“Yeah, but we just did Georgiritt on Easter Monday. Wasn’t that a cultural event, too? And we only get one a month.”
“That was April. The concert’s in May.”
Blaine went over to the bookshelf and began putting away the Books of Mormon and pamphlets they hadn’t managed to place with new investigators. “Right. And I agree with you that President Steele will probably be fine with it. I’m just surprised you are. You always struck me as a bit to the right of President Steele when it came to rules.”
“It’s church, not politics.” Elder Hummel sat on the loveseat to unlace his shoes.
“Fair enough.” Blaine tucked his English-teaching resource book into its place on the shelf. The group had gone well. Chandler had stayed, and Dolcezza and Harmonie showed up, and Samir and Nuriya stopped by for the second half. The conversation was so dynamic, Blaine had been able to set aside a thought that had begun niggling at him since Chandler’s confession. But now, as he was winding down from the bike ride, it started up again, like fallen hair tickling the back of his neck.
“So,” Blaine started, glancing over to make sure Elder Hummel wasn’t looking at him, and then carefully turning to face the bookshelf so the words would sound casual and spontaneous and, maybe, almost inconsequential. “You didn’t seem too surprised when Chandler mentioned wanting to take you out on a date.”
“Areyou surprised?” Elder Hummel slipped off his shoes and set them on the low rack next to the front door.
“That he’s interested in dating you? No. But that he actually went out and bought concert tickets? Yes.”
“Well,” said Elder Hummel, disappearing around the corner into the bathroom, “He sort of mentioned it on Sunday. You know, when we were at the park.”
Blaine heard the creak of a pipe, followed by water flowing out of the bathroom faucet. He knew Elder Hummel wouldn’t be able to hear anything he said over the running water. He wondered if this was Elder Hummel’s way of attempting to end the conversation.
Blaine looked inside his bag one last time to make sure no stray bits of literature were floating around in there. He lifted it onto his shoulder and walked to the bathroom door, leaning against the door frame to watch Elder Hummel splash his face three times before turning off the water. “He asked you out on Sunday?”
“Not exactly.” Elder Hummel grabbed his hand towel from his assigned hook and began patting himself dry.
“And you said—?”
“No, of course.”
“You could’ve told me, you know.”
“It didn’t seem that important.”
“But it is important, right? How often do you get asked out by a guy who’s super hot in gym shorts?”
“That’s so superficial.” Elder Hummel replaced his towel on the hook. “Anyway, since I’m not going, why does it matter?”
Blaine looked down at the floor. He wasn’t sure if he should say it. He wasn’t even sure if he meant it. But he had the same feeling that he got when he felt prompted to go off script in a discussion with a challenging investigator. It was like the Holy Ghost was right at his shoulder, whispering into his ear what he should say. “If you want to go out with him, you can.”
For the first time since they had gotten home, Elder Hummel looked Blaine directly in the eye. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s against the rules.” He walked past Blaine and out into the hallway.
Blaine followed him. “I know, but— If you want to, you can break the rules. I don’t have to go to the concert with you. I mean, I’d like to, but— It was Chandler’s idea. And he’s the one who paid for them. And I’m sure you think I’ll go to hell for suggesting this—”
“There is no hell.” Elder Hummel was standing in front of the bedroom mirror, aggressively removing his necktie.
“—but I’ll cover for you. If you want to go out with Chandler. Because … Because you’re important to me and I want you to be happy.”
“The church makes me happy.”
“I know, I just—”
Elder Hummel spun around. He glared at Blaine for a nanosecond before walking over to the dresser and folding his tie into a compact bundle and setting it away in its drawer. “And for the millionth time, Chandler doesn’t. Not just because it’s wrong and it breaks the mission rules, but because it’s Chandler, OK? He’s nice. Sometimes he’s even funny. And yes, I did flirt with him, but that’s because I was being an idiot. Really, really, truly, I do not have any romantic interest in Chandler Kiehl. And it’s very confusing to me that you went from hating him to wanting him to be my boyfriend.”
“I don’t want … It’s just, you said he wasn’t that stupid to think you might want to go on a date with him. So I thought—”
“It wasn’t stupid because we’re friends, and I like him as a friend, and sometimes people wish that their friends were interested in them as more than friends. But just because a person wishes for something with a friend doesn’t mean their friend will feel the same way back. And that’s okay. It’s okay to have feelings that aren’t reciprocated. It doesn’t make you stupid. It just makes you human.”
Blaine’s head spun. “Wait. I’m confused. Whose feelings in this scenario are unreciprocated?”
“Oh, for crying out loud. Chandler’s.”Elder Hummel slammed the drawer shut, the sound of wood-on-wood banging in time with Chandler’s name. “Not that it matters. I’m gay and I’m on a mission and I don’t date. It’s not like I didn’t know what the rules were coming into this.”
“Right. But you didn’t know what the rules were when you were born into the church, either.”
“Says the guy who thinks everything was already decided in the pre-existence.”
It seemed unfair for Elder Hummel to bring up their diverging beliefs about the pre-existence, but Blaine couldn’t put his finger on exactly why.“I never said that. I just said— I just said I knew you and I promised to look for you.”
Elder Hummel rolled his eyes and huffed. Blaine felt a twinge in his side. “And if that’s true, then what my seminary teacher said is true: We chose all the important people we would have in our lives. We chose our parents because we wanted to be born into the covenant. We wanted to grow up in righteousness.” He grabbed his pajamas out of the bottom drawer and headed back toward the bathroom.
“Maybe we chose our parents. Maybe not. But it’s not like we knew in the pre-existence who would become a Mormon and who wouldn’t. I mean, that’s the whole point of leaving the preexistence to get a physical body. So you can make your own choices, free of the influence of—" Blaine wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence. They were back in the bathroom. Elder Hummel was facing the mirror, undoing the top buttons of his shirt.
“Can I maybe take my shower now?” Elder Hummel said, meeting Blaine’s eyes in the mirror. “By myself?”
* * *
Blaine wasn’t in the mood for a shower. Or for changing his clothes. Or for anything.
He hated when Elder Hummel got mad at him. It made him feel so small.
But unless he was going to sit on the loveseat and mope, or go over to Dani’s and bribe Stürmchen into cuddling with him, there was nothing to do but get ready for bed.
He changed out of his clothes and put a clean set of garments on. It was warm outside, and he would have been perfectly happy to go to sleep in just his underwear. But they still needed to pray together, so Blaine put on a pair of pajamas—the same pair he had worn his first night in Ingolstadt, navy with white piping around the edges.
He could still remember maybe the look on Elder Hummel’s face when he came into the bedroom that night and saw that their PJs were almost an exact match. His expression had been one of absolute delight.
Blaine had thought, back then, that they would be two peas in a pod. But they weren’t, were they? Blaine loved Elder Hummel with all his heart, but they weren’t the same. They saw things so differently. Sometimes, those differences fit neatly together, like water in a cup. One was loose and flowing, the other hard and immutable. And yet, when they came together, they took on the same shape. They belonged together.
Other times, though, the edges didn’t match up, no matter how hard Blaine tried.
Blaine sat on his bed and opened his scriptures to a random section, closing his eyes and resting his finger on the page, the way his mother had taught him to when he needed guidance. When he opened his eyes, he found himself in the fourth chapter of Ecclesiastes. Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour.For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?
The passage said nothing about fitting. It said nothing about ease. But still, it was better to share your life with someone else, to care for each other in any way you could. It was always good to love. Even if, right in this moment, it hurt.
Maybe the reason it hurt wasn’t the love part. Maybe it was Blaine—always trying to fix things, always wanting peace, never wanting disagreements to come between them. Maybe not wanting it to hurt was what made it hurt in the first place. Maybe Blaine was caught in an insidious cycle of fear leading to more fear.
But the scripture said two are better than one not because it kept anyone from falling; but because, if one or both of them fell, they could help each other up. If one or both of them was overwhelmed by the coldness of the world, they could make each other warm.
* * *
“I’m sorry,” Elder Hummel said when he came into the bedroom. His hair was wet. His pajamas were unbleached linen. “I was short with you. I know you’re just trying to help.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” Blaine said. “Maybe I try to help too much?”
Elder Hummel sat down on the edge of Blaine’s bed. “Sometimes.”
“You know I love you, right?”
“I know.” Elder Hummel sighed, as if that knowledge was a burden.
“Do you not want me to?”
Elder Hummel shook his head. “No. It’s not that. It’s just— Sometimes it hurts. I guess because I’m used to being on my own? Watching out for myself, you know? It’s hard to explain.”
“You don’t have to,” Blaine said.
“I don’t know. I always thought I was a pretty self-confident person. I never thought I had any trouble seeing my own value. But it feels sometimes like you care more about me than I do. And I don’t know what to do with that.”
Blaine reached for Elder Hummel’s hand. The ends of their sleeves touched, Blaine’s with its bright white piping, and Elder Hummel’s with its flaxen earthiness. The tones didn’t match, but they were pleasing together, all the same. “You don’t have to do anything with that. I don’t want to make you upset. I just want to be your friend. To lift you up, when I can. That’s all.”
Elder Hummel gave Blaine a shy, sad smile. He laced his fingers with Blaine’s. “I’m sorry that sometimes I have a hard time accepting it.”
“You don’t have to apologize. You’re the way you are for a reason. Maybe I shouldn’t push so much.”
“Well, maybe.” Elder Hummel made a half shrug. His smile grew wider. A bit sly. “Or maybe it’s good for me. I don’t know.”
“Good. Because I know even less,” said Blaine. He felt a warm glow in his chest, much like the one he had felt at the Schönfeld’s piano. He squeezed Elder Hummel’s hand. “Let’s pray.”
This is part of my Mormon!Klaineuniverse. It takes place directly after Your Heart’s Been Aching and is more of a drabble (x4) than a scene. Context: Holly Holliday has been traveling around the world in an effort to escape any sort of commitments. Now, she wants to try something new and join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Blaine’s head is spinning.
Teach me how to live a good life without constantly running away. Holly’s words hit Blaine like a punch in the gut. How could he teach this investigator to do that when running away was reason he was in Germany?
Because out of college or a gap year or living with Cooper for a while, this was the only circumstance he’d been able to think of where he could be completely separated from his past. Only on a mission could he be free from frequent phone calls, the family text chat, and the expectation that he would come home for the summer and holidays and probably General Conference.
Only on a mission could he get far enough away from all of them to find out for himself who he was.
And yet, even here, he felt like he was still running. Like there was some truth about himself that he was avoiding. Maybe it was that he didn’t belong in the church at all. That, as much as he loved God and Jesus and the things you could only find in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—things like the pre-existence and eternal marriage and Heavenly Parents and Men are, that they might have joy—it never felt like it fit exactly right. Because those things that got Holly excited about the church, like Kolob and the Garden of Eden being in Missouri—they embarrassed him. The policies on gay people embarrassed him. Brigham Young embarrassed him.
Blaine had so much faith. It just wasn’t the right kind.
Sometimes, it felt like Blaine was running away from something even deeper. Like he was running away from himself.
Because, sure. It was true. If God told him to go preach to a warlord, he would do it.
But what if God told him to sit in a quiet space and listen to his own gut? To decide for himself whether he should risk his life for this warlord’s salvation, or if he should preserve his life so that he could help the world in some other way?
Would Blaine be willing to do that if God asked it of him? Or would he tug on God’s robes and beg God to make the decision for him?
Blaine didn’t know. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
